The Steele Pandemic
by LondonUnited
Summary: This story is currently Under Construction, and is currently updated as far as Chapter 18
1. Preamble

**Preamble**

Megakat City was home to many; from the law-abiding to the more criminal elements, but there had always existed a balance, perpetuated by the Enforcers and by the Swat Kats that kept the less desirable forces at bay. That the city was kept safe by the forces of vigilantes was a fact that many disagreed with, but it was something that the authorities had been powerless to do anything about.

However, the tide had turned after the Al-Kateida attack that had left the Megakat Nuclear Plant on the brink of meltdown. The incident had shifted the political fields of Megakat City, the far-right Megakat National Party had gained considerable ground in the local elections, and Mayor Manx was barely holding onto power. In an effort to revive his fortunes, the Enforcer budget had been increased by nearly three hundred percent, and many new schemes to reduce crime and increase Enforcer presence in the city had been implemented. But the additional funding had done more than put additional troopers on the streets; it had made certain elements hungry for more, and this would tip the delicate balance that had once kept Megakat City safe.


	2. An Impromptu Rescue

**An Impromptu Rescue**

It was a clear, starry night in Megakat city. Street lights and car headlamps illuminated the streets, bringing a sense of safety to the darker parts of the town. Megakat City had gained a reputation for being a place where violent crime was rife, the result of the re-distribution of Enforcer resources to tackle terrorism. It was basically the same story everywhere, though the crime rate in Megakat City had decreased, thanks to the newly-initiated Patrol Squads. Made up of Enforcer troopers, and targeted at the relatively low-level crimes that caused so much fear, their introduction had meant citizens could once again walk safely through the streets. One night though, while making routine comic book run, Chance Furlong made an unsettling discovery...

Glancing up at the darkened sky, Chance quickened his pace as he walked back to the garage. "It's getting dark, I shouldn't have been reading. I always lose track of time when I do that" said Chance to himself, wishing there was more time in the day for comics. "What am I gonna tell Jake this time..." he wondered aloud. "How about, 'I was helping an old lady with her groceries and we talked a lot...' That could work" he thought, rather stupidly.  
At that moment, a shout rent the still air of the street.  
"There it is, get it!" someone yelled, and Chance felt something brush past against his leg, but as he looked back to investigate, three Enforcer troopers rushing past barged him into the street. The impact spun him around, knocking his newly purchased comics out of his arms, liberally distributing them across the road. Chance got gingerly to his feet, brushed himself off and checked his extremities for injuries.  
"Jeez, what's their hurry" Chance wondered. It suddenly occurred to him that his comics weren't in his arms any more. He looked around, and, relieved, spotted his purchases still lying on the street, some of them partially underneath a parked sedan.  
"Well nothing broken or stolen..." he thought, picking up his things from the road. "I wonder why they were in such a hurry."  
Putting what had just transpired out of his mind, Chance continued on his journey down the street until something caught his eye. The Patrol Squad was in an alleyway between two tenement buildings, huddled togetherin a circle. It was quite by luck that Chance saw two kats cornered in the centre of the squad.  
"Right, we've got you surrounded. You are ordered to come with us, or face your punishment" one of the Enforcers, evidently the leader of the squad, barked at the two small kats.  
"Never!" replied one of his captives. "We know what your plan is; you work for the Nemesis Program! We're not test subjects, we're not going to be any part of it!"  
Cautiously, Chance looked down the alley from behind a dumpster to watch them. What he saw was like nothing he had seen before. A white she-kat with ruby-red eyes in a ragged white dress stood in the centre of the squad, holding the paw of a little kitten that looked very much like herself. The little Kitten was holding onto her hand very tightly, a look of terror spreading like a mask across its little face.  
"That's odd, they're not even adults and the Enforcers are all over them" thought Chance to himself as he crouched behind what had transpired to be an incredibly smelly dumpster.  
His thoughts were cut short however, as gun fire echoed down the alley. As he looked on, he saw the older kat fall down to her knees, blood seeping from a chest wound. She gasped and croaked, trying to breathe, and looked up at the Enforcer standing over her. He lifted his gun again and, placing the barrel carefully against her forehead, fired. Her lifeless corpse fell backwards, landing on the concrete as her blood dripped, staining the ground a deep red colour.  
Chance watched in horror as the situation unfolded before him. "How dare they!" he thought, "I've got to do something."  
Without thinking it through any further, Chance rushed in, attempting to save the young kitten from the same fate. The Enforcers hadn't noticed that they were not alone, but soon did as Chance grabbed the nearest trooper, and slammed him into his comrades. The Enforcers crashed to the ground, their guns clattering across the concrete. Wasting no time, Chance grabbed the little kittens paw and ran down the street with him. They had rounded the corner before the Enforcers begin to stir, looking around in a vein attempt to figure out what had just happened.  
"What the bloody hell just happened here?" demanded one of them as he used a rusting shopping trolley to pull himself to his feet.  
"It doesn't matter; we have the sample that we need. The other one is of no importance, as of yet" replied the leader.  
"You sure? I mean, what if it develops, you know, inside her?" asked the third Enforcer, gesturing to the bloody corpse lying beside them.  
"Then our suppliers will deal with it." The leader told them. "Lets get out of here; we've got to get the rest of this done tonight. Have you selected suitable types yet?" he asked the one enforcer still lying on the ground, who was occupied nursing a deep cut in his leg.  
"Yeah, they're being moved as we speak." He replied.  
"Fine, then we'd better get a move on. We have a bus to catch" the leader said, turning to walk back to their car. The other Enforcer pulled his comrade to his feet and they followed their leader back towards a waiting patrol car.

---

As they rounded the corner onto Main Street, Chance looked around to see if the coast was clear. Seeing no one following them, he led the kitten into the Manx Municipal Park and sat him down on a bench next to the statue of the Mayor. He looked at the young kitten to see if he was all right.  
"Are you okay?" Chance asked.  
The kitten nodded and rubbed his eyes to get the tears out.  
"Do you have a name?" Chance continued. "My name is Chance" he said, pointing to himself. "What's yours?"  
"Cody" replied the kitten.  
"Cody huh, well I think those Enforcers may be coming for you again, and after what happened to the kat who was with you, I can't risk leaving you alone here. Cody, if you come with me I'll protect you, okay?" he finished, smiling at Cody. Cody nodded and extended his hand to grabs Chance's.  
Chance and Cody walked out of the park, towards a nearby bus stop to head back to the junkyard. Chance continued to be cautious, in case the Enforcers returned. Ordinarily he would have walked the journey, but he didn't want to take any chances. As they waited in the windswept bus shelter, he turned to Cody.  
"So, Cody, do you have a family?" he asked.  
Cody shook his head in response.  
Wondering what he was doing there then, Chanced asked, "Oh, well, do you know someone here in Megakat City?"  
Cody shook his head again, but continued to look at Chance.  
Chance let out a sigh of irritation. "Well, do you know why they're after you?" he asked, somewhat annoyed at not being able to get anything out of the kid.  
This time, instead of shaking his head no, Cody buried his head in Chance's leg. Tears streaked his face as he looked up at Chance.  
"Oh, I'm sorry about that. You don't have to tell me right now if you don't want to, alright?" Chance told Cody.  
Cody wiped his eyes and smiled at Chance, before looking down the street. Thinking he had spotted the enforcers, Chance jumped up, but it was only the bus. A lop-sided display above the windscreen read 'Ashland via Megakat Bridge'.  
"This is us" said Chance to Cody, helping him up the steps onto the bus. They took seats at the back and were silent the whole journey, Cody with his head lying across Chance's lap while Chance himself tried to figure out how he would explain this to Jake.

---

Meanwhile, across town, an Enforcer prison transport bus was making its way towards Megakat Maximum Security Prison along a series of winding country lanes. This was typical, and had become a normal procedure of late. Now that the Patrols had been stepped up, there seemed to be ever more criminals headed for the prison.  
The driver was surprised when he saw a patrol car coming up behind him, flashing its lights and siren. Worried he had a problem with one of his transfer prisoners, he pulled the bus over to the side of the road. The patrol car pulled up behind him, and three Enforcer troopers got out and walked towards the door, which opened with a pneumatic hiss as they approached.  
"What's up?" asked the driver.  
"You've got a problem with a couple of the transfers, seems they're wanted for more than just a bank robbery" replied the leader of the troopers.  
The driver let out a sigh of irritation, this had happened before, and usually involved a lot of paperwork at the roadside. Looked like he wouldn't be getting home in time for Litterbin after all.  
"We'll just have to take these two back to Headquarters, you can continue on your way once we've got them."  
And with that, the leading trooper opened the internal security gate and hauled two of the prisoners near the front out of the bus, where his colleagues threw them face-first to the ground. Then he closed the security gate and stepped off the bus, banging the side twice to tell the driver he could go. Utterly nonplussed, the driver put the bus in gear and headed onwards. He was surprised the process had been so quick, but wasn't in the mood to enquire further. He still had a chance to catch Litterbin if he was quick.  
The leading trooper watched as the bus rounded a corner and headed out of sight.  
"Ok, get them up. Let's do this thing" he told his colleagues.  
They dragged the two prisoners over to their car, where they had a silver briefcase resting on the bonnet. The leader donned a pair of protective gloves before opening it. Inside were two phials of an electric blue substance, a silvery injection gun and two radio trackers.  
The leader loaded one of the phials into the gun, and his colleagues lifted one of the prisoners up onto the car.  
"H-Hey, what are you gonna do with that, I ain't done nuffin'" protested the prisoner.  
"Do you think I give shit? You're criminal scum, no-one gives a shit about worthless street trash like you" the leader said before plunging the needle of the injection gun right into the spine of the prisoner, who let out a blood-curdling scream as the blue liquid drained from the gun into his spinal column. The leader then implanted one of the trackers straight into the back of his neck. There was no scream this time; he had passed out from the pain already.  
"Ok, give me the next one then" ordered the leader.  
The other prisoner struggled, he didn't want to end up like his mate, but he was still wearing his manacles from the bus, and was being held by two burly Enforcers. Just to make sure, one of them drew his Buzz Baton, an electric cosh carrying 50,000 volts, and whacked his victim repeatedly across the back of his legs.  
"Calm down, calm down, he ain't going nowhere. Now get him up here" barked the leader at his subordinates. Once again he loaded the injection gun and fired it right into the spine of the prisoner.  
"Ok, let 'em loose" he ordered, and his two comrades unlocked the prisoner's bonds and left them next to each other behind a nearby privet hedge. Both had passed out.  
"Right, let's go. They'll come to in a bit, and I don't want to be around for that" the leader said. His comrades chuckled, both knowing exactly what he meant, and the climbed back into their patrol car.  
Lying behind the hedge as the Enforcers headed back towards the city, the two prisoners had no idea what lay in store for them...

---

Chance & Cody's bus pulled off the highway and headed down towards the golf course, a new route diversion initiated by the mayor which, conveniently, went past the junkyard. They got off at the forlorn-looking bus stop across the street, and as the bus pulled away from the stop they walked across to the garage.  
Jake was already standing outside, waiting on Chance. He shook his head when he saw Chance walking across the street from the bus stop towards him. He didn't see Cody, who was hiding behind Chance's leg.  
"Where have you been?" Jake demanded of his friend with an air of reservation.  
Chance smiled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck, "I, uh... have a present" he said.  
Jake gave Chance a look, and was startled to see Cody, who was looking around from behind the protection of Chance. "I think your present has other plans" he said as Cody quickly retreated back behind Chance when he saw Jake looking at him.  
Chance shrugged, and then told Jake what happened, which unsurprisingly left Jake a bit shocked.  
"All he says is 'Cody'? At least he knows his name."  
"Yep, that's all. But what's strange is that it was Enforcers who were about to do him in. Surely they, of all people, would be out to protect kids like him" Chance pondered aloud.  
After hearing mention of the Enforcers, Cody started to shake in fear. Chance patted his head for reassurance.  
"Enforcers... That is odd" wondered Jake. "I wonder why they're so interested in this kid" he added, looking at Cody as he walked towards the kitten, who retreated behind Chance again, scared of Jake.  
Chance kneeled down next to Cody, and pointed to Jake. "Cody, it's alright, he's a good guy, OK?" he told the kitten.  
Cody nodded, waving at Jake and smiling.  
"Look Chance, sweet as the kid is, what are we going to do with him? They're bound to come after him, so we've got to find somewhere safe to keep him" Jake told Chance, ever the pragmatist. Chance looked from Jake to Cody and back again. "Alright, fine" said Jake, bowing to the pressure of two such pleading faces, "we can hide him here for the time being, but we've got to find somewhere more permanent."  
"Thanks buddy, that's all we can do for now, until we get more answers. He can sleep in the guest room" Chance replied.  
"Fine" said Jake, somewhat tired already from having to wait so long for Chance. "Alright then... let's go in, I want something to eat. We've got tuna if you want."  
Cody nodded vigorously.  
The three walked into the garage, and as Jake headed through to kitchen to prepare the tuna, Chance and Cody sat on the sofa. Chance picked up the remote control, turning on the TV. As the box flickered to life, a picture of Ann Gora swam into focus. She barely had time to announce a Kats Eye News exclusive about two prisoners claiming to have been brutally assaulted during transport before T-Bone switched over to the cartoon channel for Scaredy Kat.


	3. Back At Base

**Back at Base**

At Enforcer Headquarters, the patrol car, covered in dust from a shortcut across a field, pulled into the parking lot. There seemed to be no-one about, just ranks of patrol vehicles, transport buses and tanks.  
The three troopers stepped out of their car, and made their way towards the door into the main building.  
"Where do you think you're going?" came a voice from a nearby stairwell.  
They all jumped, not having noticed anyone. From the gloom of the stairs, a figure emerged into the light. For a moment, they thought it was Feral, but they all breathed a sigh of relief when Lieutenant Commander Steele stepped into the light.  
"Come with me, NOW!" he barked at them. Unquestioningly, they followed him down the stairs into a basement level. Once they were safely inside and had shut the door, Steele turned on them.  
"You bloody morons! You inept idiots! Have you any idea the trouble you've caused me! Look!" Steele barked at them, before turning on a small TV mounted on the wall. The TV crackled to life, a picture of Ann Gora coming into focus.  
"And our top story today, two prisoners being transferred from Enforcer Headquarters to the Maximum Security Prison are claiming to have been brutally assaulted by Enforcer troopers. Enforcer Commander Ulysses Feral has strenuously denied these allegations, but one of the prisoners who spoke to us just hours ago has since been taken under Enforcer escort to what has been described as a 'secure hospital'. The other prisoner has not been found, but is believed to be in a critical condition somewhere in the Megakat Metropolitan Area. Citizens are warned to be on their guard..." Steele muted the TV and rounded on the three troopers.  
"Fortunately, we have a fix on the other prisoner, and the 'secure hospital' is a waste ground outside the city. We are back on track, but no thanks to YOU!" Steele shouted.  
"But sir, we did as you instructed. How could we know Mutagen 786 wouldn't kick in fast enough?" protested the lead trooper.  
"Its irrelevant now, everything is now going according to plan. Do you have the sample?"  
"Yeah, its right here." The leader drew a canister of a red substance, suspiciously like blood, from his pocket and handed it to Steele.  
"And you took care of the other child?" Steele asked.  
"Err, yeah, you don't have to worry about either of them any more" was the trooper's uncertain reply.  
"Good. They contain the anti-mutagen, that meddler Xenon had them genetically modified. When this becomes a pandemic, I want to be the only one holding the cure. Now go, and don't disappoint me again. I have ways and means, you know. Ways and means."  
The three troopers left hurriedly, wanting to get as far away from Steele as possible, before he could utilise his 'ways and means'.  
"What did you tell him that for?" hissed one of the troopers, as soon as they were out of earshot.  
"What, are you suggesting that I tell him we lost the kitten? After we made the news? Are you insane? No, we will deal with that little runt. I've got a friend over in the chopper squadron commander; I'll get him to help us find it. The kid's still tracked, remember."  
They walked together into the main building, before parting ways...

---

Later that day, the leader of the Patrol Squad headed up to the roof level pilots lounge. Generally, Enforcers didn't leave their group stations, so he drew a few stares as he walked through the pilots' area to their control centre. He headed through a door into the chopper dispatch centre where his friend worked.  
The walls were lined with banks of computers, and a giant flat-panel monitor dominated the main wall. Little helicopter logos moved slowly across it, indicating where the hundreds of patrolling choppers were. Several technicians were busy servicing a large computer that sat in the corner emitting irritated bleeping noises.  
The trooper ignored the techies, who seemed to infest Enforcer Headquarters now that they had had the new IT system installed, and looked for his mate at the workstations. He wasn't hard to find, they'd known each other since the academy even though they were in different areas of Enforcer operations.  
"Before you think of trying to make me jump, be aware that I do have CCTV on this screen" the leader's mate said, as he approached quietly from behind, indeed in an effort to scare him. "What do you want; I'm busy here, in case you haven't noticed."  
"We need to talk, somewhere private" the trooper said. Sighing, his mate led him out onto a balcony overlooking the rooftop runway.  
"So, what is it you want? You never come up here unless you want something, so spit it out" his mate asked.  
"I need something retrieved, Luke, without Steele knowing" the trooper said, in hushed tones.  
"Don't ask much do you..." Luke replied, sarcastically. "What are we going to need for this... Retrieval?"  
"A full chopper squadron, tank force, all the local patrol vehicles and sharp-shooters. The works" the trooper responded.  
"So this thing we're retrieving, it can get away of its own volition can it?" Luke asked.  
"It can with help, which I think it will have" the trooper replied.  
"So, you think you can retrieve the vessel without my knowing?" a voice said from behind them. They spun around in surprise to find Steele standing behind them.  
"Sir, I, err, I didn't... How did you know...?" stuttered the trooper.  
"He's not the only one who can use the CCTV. Just see to it that the vessel gets retrieved. My friends at Puma-Dyne have decided they want its entire contents" Steele said before walking off back into the building.  
"How did I just get away with that?" the trooper wondered aloud.  
"He's been in a good mood since lunchtime, he got a visit from some suits in a Puma-Dyne limo. They must have said something he liked" his friend replied, before following Steele inside to make the arrangements.


	4. Under Unfriendly Fire

**Under Unfriendly Fire**

That night, Chance was slowly drifting off to sleep as he watched Cody doze. Jake was asleep in the next room, having decided that keeping twenty-four/seven Cody Watch was pointless. The quiet of the junkyard occupied the building, except for the distant rumbling from the expressway traffic, which was typical every night. Chance had nearly got to sleep when he heard an unusual sound that jolted him from his sleep. He wondered over to the window to investigate, still in a slightly sleepy state. He squinted out the window, and was slightly surprised to see a squadron of Enforcer choppers approaching across the junkyard from the City across the river. As they got closer and their rotor noise got louder, Chance began to pick up on the unusual flight arrangement of the approaching choppers. It seemed familiar, and he racked is brains to recall what the pattern was. It infuriated him when such flying knowledge slipped his mind. As they got closer, Chance watched with interest as they began to fly in closer formation. It was then that it hit him; it was a Delta Attack pattern. He briefly had a moment to wonder why they were preparing to attack, but wondering had no place when the choppers entered firing range and loosed a barrage of gunfire on the house.  
"What the fuck!" Chance yelled as he dived away from the window, which shattered under the hail of cannon fire.  
Cody let out a startled shriek of terror as the window imploded. Chance jumped up, and threw himself down over Cody as another wave of fire rained down upon the building.  
As they picked themselves up, Jake crashed through the door. "Chance they're shooting at us, we've got to get out of here" he yelled.  
"Oh yeah, that's a good idea" Chance replied sarcastically, seizing up Cody and following Jake out onto the landing.  
As they began to descend the stairs, one of the overflying choppers fired a missile, which sailed in a graceful rising arc into the side of the building. The resulting explosion tore through the structure, ripping the stair supports from their mounts. Chance, Jake and Cody collapsed with the stairs to the ground level. Dust and rubble engulfed them for a moment, before another chopper strafed the building with a further barrage of cannon fire causing Jake and Chance to return to their senses.  
Chance hauled Cody to his feet, and they ran through a side door into the garage. The roof had partially collapsed, crushing much of the equipment, but the tow truck was still sitting unharmed next to a squashed workbench.  
They climbed over the rubble into the truck, which started easily, given that they were both mechanics. Chance slammed the truck into gear, and it all but leaped from the garage, skilfully guided by Chance through the piles of garbage out towards the street. As they lurched out of the gate and turned to head for the expressway, Chance spotted an attack force of five Enforcer tanks approaching down the road. He swerved the truck around, its tail demolishing a bus stop that stood opposite the entrance to the junkyard. But no sooner as he had turned around he spotted several Enforcer patrol cars bearing down on him from the other direction. He wavered, trying to find a way out. Taking advantage of the pause, a chopper fired two missiles, which slammed into the road in front of, and behind, the truck, blocking its escape.  
"Give us the boy, right now!" came Steele's voice from a chopper loudhailer overhead.  
"No, over my dead body Steele" Chance shouted up at the chopper, as they climbed out of their truck.  
Steele issued a hollow laugh through the loudhailer, as Enforcer markskats took aim from an armoured truck behind the tanks.  
Chance made to grab Cody and pull him away, but one of the sharp shooters had found his mark, firing a hypodermic dart into Chance's neck. He collapsed to the ground instantly. Cody gasped, and ran to Chance's side, kneeling down next to him and trying to shake him awake.  
"Why is that boy so important?" Jake shouted at Steele's chopper overhead.  
"No need for you to know that. Come now little one..." was Steele's cold response.  
Cody tried to hide behind Jake, but he too was promptly hit with another dart, which knocked him clean out, leaving Cody standing alone in the middle of the street.  
"Take those two mechanics into custody. As for the boy, take him to the lab. Alive" Steele shouted over the radio at the ground units, who swept in to follow their orders.


	5. Escape

**Escape**

Some hours later, Chance and Jake were recovering from the effects of the anaesthetic. As he became more conscious, Chance began to look around, taking in his new surroundings. They had been locked in an Enforcer holding cell, and manacled at the ankles to a wall-mounted bracket. There was a window in one wall, little larger than the average letterbox. But it was barred, and even if Chance could have made his escape through it, the view made it plain that they were some distance up in Enforcer Headquarters, and jumping out would be suicide. Jake was coming to across the room, and it was then that Chance began to look about for the missing member of their party. Chance looked around for Cody in one of the neighbouring cells, but to his dismay he couldn't find him, just a mixed bag of junkies and winos sleeping off the more dizzying effects of intoxicants.  
"Oh man, they've got Cody!" Chance shouted, somewhat unnecessarily, at Jake. "We have to get him back!"  
"Yeah Chance, don't you think we've got enough problems of our own right now? What with being locked in a cell?" was Jake's sarcastic reply. Chance's obsession with this kid was beginning to grate.  
"Come on buddy, we've got to help him" Chance replied desperately.  
"Hmm" mused Jake thoughtfully. "They may have brought him here, just before I passed out Steele said something about taking him to the Enforcer lab, so he's probably in here somewhere Chance. But right now, we're locked in a cage, so unless you've got some bright ideas, we're not going to be able to help anyone."  
Chance shouted angrily at this, and took out his aggression on the bars of the cell. One of the dozing drunks in the next cage rolled over at the sound, but that was the only response. The bars held firm.  
"If only I still had my toolkit!" Chance said, turning to gaze out of the window.  
"Err, Chance?" said Jake uncertainly.  
"What?" replied the increasingly irascible Chance.  
"You do" Jake told him, matter-of-factly.  
"Do what?" Chance retorted, getting more annoyed by the moment.  
"You do have your toolkit, it's in your back pocket, they can't have bothered to search you when they brought us in" Jake announced, pointing.  
Chance put his hand to his pocket, and found that Jake was absolutely right. Someone had cocked up their incarceration, and now that person would pay. It took Chance all of two minutes to remove the manacles and pick the lock on the gate, giving them access to the whole of Enforcer Headquarters.  
"Where's the lab?" Chance hissed at Jake, his mind set firmly on recovering Cody.  
"First things first" Jake said, pointing to a door marked 'Main & Auxiliary Power Bus – No Unauthorised Admittance'.  
The two exchanged a knowing look, and headed inside to cause some damage.

---

In a Lab several floors below, a pair of scientists were observing Cody, who was tied to an operating table. The small child was struggling against his bonds, but he was powerless to get free of the leather straps.  
A computer set up against one wall began to let out a wailing sound, and a message flashed across the screen "test complete".  
"Excellent. All is going according to plan," a shadowy figure said, before turning to the two scientists. "Get it done," he told them, before walking out of the door to the lift bank opposite.  
Once the figure was out of earshot, the two scientists, who had been quite tense in his presence, relaxed.  
"So, we're going to extract the anti-mutagen directly from him?" one enquired of the other, evidently his superior.  
"Most certainly, it has developed rather well inside the cocoon of this kitten. That blundering self-righteous fool Xenon would have wanted to use this for the sake of good. He always was weak, and now he's no longer anyone's concern" the superior said, allowing himself a small chuckle at the fate of his former colleague.  
"Very well then, should we begin, Manik?" the first scientist asked.  
"Yes Clause, we shall. We will begin by incising the left..." Manik was stopped mid-sentence as room suddenly blackened out, and the electrical equipment began to make whining sounds as it shut down.  
"A power cut! Who is responsible for this?" demanded Manik, throwing down his scalpel and stalking over to the phone mounted on the wall. He picked up the receiver, but heard no tone.  
"Damn and blast!" exclaimed Manik, rounding on where he thought the other scientist was standing to launch a tirade of abuse at the only person accessible.  
Suddenly, the back-up power kicked in, and the lights came back up. Manik blinked for a moment, but barely had a chance to catch his thoughts before a somewhat over-enthusiastic Jake punched him squarely on the nose. Manik was thrown across a table of beakers, shattering them, before slumping unconscious against the wall.  
"Good left-hook, buddy" Chance told Jake, looking at the body of Manik across the room.  
"You can congratulate me later Chance, let's just get the kid and get out of here. It won't be long before they're onto us!" Jake replied.  
Chance made his way over to the table on which Cody lay, and released him from the straps holding him in place. He picked Cody up from the table and set him down on the floor, whereupon Cody smiled up at his rescuer, and hugged him. Chance smiled down at the kitten, but Jake wasn't concerned with the heartfelt reunion.  
"Alright then, we've got him, let's go, now!" Jake instructed them, but it was too late. Clause, the other scientist, had hidden behind a large free-standing bookshelf when they had entered, and was now making a break for it.  
"Quick, get him!" Chance shouted, and Jake picked up a bottle of some amber chemical that had been sitting on a nearby table, ready to throw. Taking aim, he threw the bottle at the fleeing scientist. It shattered on his back, and Clause let out a piercing shriek as he was engulfed by blue flames. He ran down the length of the corridor leading from the room, before grabbing hold of an alarm. Jake and Chance watched as the flaming figure smashed the fire alarm, hoping for the sprinklers to come on and douse him, but they didn't, as it wasn't a fire alarm.  
The general alert siren rang throughout the Enforcer building, as the scientist, weakened by the flames, collapsed in a heap on the floor, still ablaze.  
"That's done it! We've got to go, right now!" Jake shouted at Chance, grabbing his arm and pulling him towards the exit. On their way out, Cody grabbed what appeared to be a wooden staff, but Chance and Jake ignored him in their haste to get out.  
They headed through a maze of mercifully empty corridors before they rounded a corner to be met a group of Enforcer troopers, their weapons at the ready.  
"Hold it right there, you three are under arrest!" the sergeant behind them shouted through a megaphone.  
Chance and Jake looked for a way out, but it was hopeless, they had no choice but to surrender, otherwise those shotguns would blow them to pieces. Neither noticed Cody, but if they had, what they would have seen they would not have believed.  
Cody was grasping the staff he had taken from the lab and, grunting somewhat, slammed its bottom end into the floor. It then became evident this was more than just a wooden walking stick, as diodes along its length lit up red, and began pulsing slowly. The Enforcers were slightly taken aback, and, unwilling to shoot at a kitten, did not act while Chance and Jake just watched Cody's slow actions. Grunting a little, Cody slammed the end of the staff down again, causing the diodes to change to a blue colour. As they changed, so did the air around them. A cool breeze began to blow down the corridor, barely doing more than the air conditioning, but it grew stronger. The blue lights of the staff began to pulse faster and faster as the breeze got stronger and stronger until it was a fully blown gale. The Enforcers were hunched down into the wind, but they still had their guns trained on the three in front of them.  
Cody was visibly weakening, barely able to stand up against the wind, let alone hold the staff. With his last ounce of strength, he lifted the staff up, and once more slammed it into the ground. The diodes emitted a blinding green light, and the wind swirling around them became focused at the top of the staff. A swirling column of air had formed a tornado, and Cody guided it with his staff towards the Enforcers. Blinded by the light, they did not see the approaching turbulence until it was upon them. Their guns were sucked out of their hands and flung in all directions. The Enforcers themselves were knocked of their feet and hurled into the walls of the corridor. Carnage reigned.  
Then Cody collapsed, his body falling limply to the floor, his staff falling from his hand, its lights fading as it clattered across the ground. Chance ran to Cody's side.  
"He's still breathing" Chance shouted, breathing a sigh of relief. "He's not in a good way though, we need to get him looked at right away."  
"Right now, we've just got to get him out of here before they come around" Jake said, gesturing at the fallen Enforcers.  
"Yeah, you're right" said Chance, grabbing Cody in his arms and following Jake down the corridor and into a fire escape staircase.  
They hurried down the stairway, and through the doors on each floor they heard Enforcer troopers running to the scene of devastation they had just left. When they reached the ground floor, they left the stairwell and headed down a corridor towards a door marked 'exit'. As they neared it, they heard two Enforcers approaching from the other side. They dived into the first open room they could, and found themselves in the vehicle pool. Ranks of parked patrol cars lined the walls, and at the end of the room, a ramp led out to the street. They made a break for it and, mercifully, were not intercepted, their antics upstairs having distracted the Enforcer's attention.  
Out on the street, they took refuge in an alleyway opposite the Enforcer building. "Phew, that was close" said Jake, rather understatedly.  
"That was _too_ close" Chance replied, turning his attention to the limp body of Cody in his arms. His breathing appeared to be stronger, but he was still unconscious. As Chance looked him over, he noticed a chunky grey bracelet on Cody's arm. A light on one side of it glowed red, blinking on and off every few seconds. "Hmmm" Chance thought, looking at it.  
"Look buddy" said Jake "I know that kid means a lot to you, but he's going to get us killed at this rate. They tracked him back to the garage earlier, so it's not a bad bet they can't still track him now" he said, but Chance appeared not to have noticed his words at all. "Chance? Chance are you listening to me?" Jake demanded.  
"That's it" yelled Chance, dragging the bracelet roughly off Cody's arm. "It's a bloody tracker! That's how they found him, that's how they tracked him back to us!"  
He threw the bracelet to the ground and stamped on it repeatedly. The red light faded slightly, then died.  
"So, they were tracking us the whole time!" Jake said, looking at the broken tracker. "Well, they'll have a hard time finding us now."  
"Ok" said Chance, finally beginning to think pragmatically, "where should we go now?"  
"There's only one person we know in this city who can do something about this, but we're going to have a job convincing Callie to help us, now that we're fugitives" Jake replied.  
"Well, we've got no choice. We'll have to persuade her" Chance replied, glancing around, looking for some kind of transport. There were no cars parked nearby, only a vandalised and forlorn looking bus stop stood by the kerb.  
"Chance, where will Callie be at this time of night?" asked Jake, ever the pragmatist.  
"Dunno... City Hall? Manx always has her working late, if we're lucky we might catch her before she goes home" answered Chance. "Doesn't matter anyway right now, we've got no way to get there."  
Just as he said this, an Enforcer patrol car turned the corner, and they dived into the shadow of the bus stop to avoid it.  
"We can't stay here, that's for sure Chance" said Jake.  
They were both looking around for some means of transport when a bus rounded the corner and came towards them. Illuminated in its windscreen was the destination 'City Hall'.  
"Thank god for the night bus" said Jake  
"Give me the Turbokat any day" replied Chance, but he boarded the bus and paid the fare. As it pulled off, they noticed another patrol car scouring the area for them.  
"At least they won't expect us to have taken public transport to escape," said Jake.  
As the bus headed, nearly empty, down the darkened streets of the city, Cody began to stir in Chance's lap.  
"Hey kid" Chance said to him "are you OK? That was a pretty cool trick back there."  
"Tired" muttered Cody, before closing his eyes again and resting his head on Chance.


	6. A Friendly Face?

**A Friendly Face?**

Chance, Jake and a recently-awoken Cody walked from the bus station opposite City Hall and up the grand stairs of the building. A banner emblazoned with the new 'Vote Manx' campaign advert hung over the entrance, and it was evident that they were going to put a lot of effort into this one as soon as the trio stepped through the door. As they did so, an infra-red sensor picked up on them and powered up a wall-mounted TV. Startled by its sudden activation and the thought they may have triggered a security system, Jake and Chance Jumped. They were relieved when the TV played out the latest 'Vote Manx' commercial:  
"Without a mayor Manx-ey, our town would really stink"  
"We wouldn't have our golf course, or mini skating rink"  
"We wouldn't have our space port, or shiny Bigfoot traps"  
"It's not the mayor's fault that the stadium collapsed" the TV sang, before a rushed voice added "Paid for by the Mayor Manx for Mayor Mayoral Committee."  
The TV then went silent, and Chance went over to the touch-screen 'visitor's guide to City Hall' machine. He called up the building guide, and found Callie's office located on one of the upper floors.  
"This way" he said to the others, leading them through the darkened and empty lobby to a bank of lifts.  
As they stepped out many floors up, Chance took a moment to rearrange his hair in a vein attempt to look like more than a dishevelled tomkat. Jake gave a resigned sigh, and knocked on the door of the office.  
"Come!" barked an irritable voice from inside. Gingerly, Jake opened the door.  
Callie sat at her desk in front of a large map of the city, and didn't look up as the three kats entered.  
"What?" she asked, shortly.  
Chance was about to turn on what he liked to dub the 'Chance Charm', but Jake nipped in first. That was the last thing they needed, with Callie evidently in a bad mood.  
"Err, Miss Briggs, we need some help" Jake cautiously offered.  
Hearing his voice, Callie looked up. She had been expecting a courier delivery, not her two mechanics. She didn't see Cody, who had once again taken refuge behind Chance's leg.  
"What are you guys doing here?" she asked, puzzled.  
"Uh, Cal, listen. It's a kind of a long story" Chance said before he and Jake launched into a detailed explanation of everything leading up their arrival, Chance's finding Cody, the chopper attack, the escape from Enforcer headquarters, everything.  
"Well, I, I, I'm really not sure" Callie stammered, reeling in shock at the story that had just unveiled before her.  
"I know it's a lot to take in Miss Briggs" said Jake "but I swear to you it's the truth. We really need your help."  
"You're fugitives, and you've got a child that isn't yours!" Callie said, calmly. "I really don't have any choice here." And with that she picked up her phone, and began dialling 1-800-N-FORCER into it.  
"Please Help" a small voice squeaked from behind Chance's leg.  
Callie paused in dialling the number, and looked down.  
"Please" Cody said again, stepping out from behind Chance to face Callie.  
Upon seeing Cody for the first time, Callie's heart melted. She had always loved kids, and this kitten was so cute and lost, she couldn't resist. She still tried to maintain some degree of composure, though her expression throughout said otherwise.  
"Well, I suppose I could give you the benefit of the doubt, and I do need someone to house sit while I'm working later" she said, beaming at Cody.  
Callie came around her desk and knelt down in front of Cody.  
"Hello little guy, I'm Callico" she said "but you can call me Callie." Cody nodded in response.  
"Are you alright then little Cody?" she asked, but received just another, small, nod in response.  
"Would you like some sweeties from my desk?" she asked, but this time got no response at all.  
Callie stood up, looking slightly miffed. She was normally good with kids.  
"Is he... You know, all right? Upstairs, I mean" Callie whispered to Jake.  
"He seems to be a mute, Callie" Jake said coldly, rather annoyed at her readiness to believe Cody was dumb, but then, she hadn't witnessed him in action.  
"Oh, I see" said Callie, and although she didn't really see at all, she reached into her desk and drew out a lollipop, which she handed to Cody. He took it gratefully; restoring Callie's slightly bruised confidence in her children skills.

---

Back at Enforcer Headquarters there was utter turmoil. Steele was incandescent with rage, and had found an outlet: the hapless custody sergeant.  
"How did they get out you cretinous imbecile!" They're just two bloody mechanics! They're hardly Houdini!" he bellowed at the sergeant.  
"Sir, that's just it - you didn't frisk them properly, one of them must have had tools when you locked them in there and they managed to unlock the gate..." retorted the sergeant.  
Steele had no argument; he had failed to frisk them when they went into the cell. Had he done so, they would not have been able to get through to the secure labs. Steele stalked from the custody suite and headed back to his office.  
Things were not looking good. The deal he had made with Puma-Dyne depended on his controlling the anti-mutogen so that once the pandemic had developed he could charge top dollar for vaccines against it. Now he had lost the carrier, and now could not track him to get it back. Worse, Commander Feral & his niece were due to return in a matter of days. He needed to complete his deal with Puma-Dyne before that, otherwise Feral was sure to take him to task.  
One of the troopers entered the office, and was rewarded by having a desk-tidy thrown at him.  
"Sir, we have an All Points Bulletin out on the kid, all available units are searching for him. It won't be long, we'll get him" he said.  
"What about the mechanics? They're helping the kid, and if they find out his significance, we are royally screwed" replied Steele, growing more agitated by the minute.  
"We'll find them, sir"...


	7. Next Move

**Next Move**

Callie was driving Jake, Chance and Cody back to her house in the Megakat Hills so she could collect some documents.  
"So, why do the Enforcers want him so badly?" she asked.  
"Who knows?" replied chance.  
"Xenon" squeaked Cody.  
"What was that Cody?" asked Jake in his best child-friendly voice.  
"Xenon" repeated Cody.  
"I've heard of him" said Callie "he was a scientist, used to work at Puma-Dyne's weapon technology division. He was accused of industrial espionage and sacked, but he always proclaimed his innocence. He started a small biotech business, Xenon Petrochemical, down in the old oil refinery across the bay."  
"How do you know that?" asked Chance, marvelling at Callie's knowledge.  
"I cleared his planning application to extend the infirmary part of the refinery. He wanted to build a full-size operating theatre, and he wanted to extend the laboratory area. I don't know how much of it he actually finished though, he filed for bankruptcy last week" she replied.  
"Do you know where we could find him?" asked Chance.  
"I've got the original planning application at home - that'll have his contact details" she replied as the car rounded a corner into a gated community called 'Megakat Courtlands'.  
Callie drove them through the quiet streets, and after a few minutes had pulled up in front of a large three-bed semi that looked suspiciously like every other house they had passed since arriving. As they got out, Chance thought about making some comment on the identikit nature of these communities, but he was about to get inside Callie's house, and fancied his prospects.  
After safely getting inside Chance led Cody upstairs to one of the bedrooms, leaving Jake on the living room sofa and Callie in the kitchen making coffee. After a few minutes, Chance joined his partner on the chair opposite him.  
"He's asleep, went out like a light." Chance sighed, and glanced up that the ceiling. "Poor kid, he doesn't have anyone to look out for him..." he tailed off, leaving the thought to hang in the air.  
"He does, you know" Jake said to Chance, who looked back blankly. "You, Chance. You've been looking out for the kid ever since you first saw him, you're like a father to the poor boy Chance, he trusts you a lot."  
"Yeah, I guess" said Chance, clearly not convinced. The two were silent for a few moments, until Callie came into the room bearing three cups of coffee. She set them down on the low table in front of the sofa, next to the staff that Cody had taken from the Lab.  
"What's that thing?" she asked, pointing at the staff.  
"We don't know" said Jake "all we know is that it's very powerful, and the kid knows how to use it. He created some kind of mini-cyclone inside Enforcer Headquarters with that thing, its how we escaped."  
"Say what!" said Callie, whose day was getting weirder by the minute.  
"Yeah" Chance said "Cody banged it down on the floor, and it got all windy in there, then he targeted it at the Enforcers that had us trapped, it knocked 'em for six, I'll say that."  
Callie leaned over and picked up the staff, turning it around and examining it from all angles.  
"Hey, guys, look at this" she said, lowering the staff and pointing to a logo on the top of it. Chance and Jake leaned in closer, and saw the word etched into the staff.  
"Xenon..." said Chance, puzzled.  
"Is it the same person, do you think?" Jake asked.  
"Has to be, it's not a very common name is it?" Callie said. "What I'd really like to know though, is why Commander Feral isn't doing something about the Enforcers attacking people like this, they've gone after you, this kid, that she-kat he was with, there's even reports that two prisoners in transfer were hauled from their bus and assaulted by the roadside. I really don't get it, Feral would never allow this. I know he went on holiday a few weeks back, but surely he'd return for something like this."  
"I dunno Miss Briggs" Jake said "Who's running the Enforcers now? There's definitely something shady going on."  
Chance was about to add his two cents, but he was interrupted by the sound of Cody crying upstairs.  
"I'll be back in a minute" he said, before heading upstairs to Cody's room, where he sat down on the bed and comforted him.  
Cody wiped his eyes and looked at chance, tugging on his arm.  
"You want me to stay with you 'till you go to sleep?" Chance suggested, receiving an affirmative nod from Cody. Chance sighed, but said "alright then" and made himself comfortable next to the kitten, and waited to see him drop off to sleep. But soon Cody was tugging on his sleeve again, looking up at Chance with pleading eyes.  
Chance looked around, a bit clueless, then decided to guess, "Do you want a glass of milk?" he asked, to which Cody shook his head, before going back to tugging.  
Chance thought for another moment, "A bedtime story?" This time Cody nodded, rather enthusiastically.  
Chance shrugged, trying to think of a story, "Ay, this'll be a hard one to fake." He said, but he managed, soon telling Cody a story even motioning flying and explosions, which was natural since he was telling Cody about the Swat Kats. He made sure it was not loud enough for Callie or Jake to hear, both of whom were drinking coffee in the living room. It gave Chance a pang of irritation to think that he wasn't the one chatting with Callie, but the feeling disappeared when he looked back at Cody.  
Downstairs, Callie was rooting through a substantial pack of City Hall files.  
"Here's Xenon's planning application, Jake" said Callie, handing him a fat administration file. "I'll see if I can dig up anything else on him when I get back to City Hall. You guys can just stay here until I call."  
"Thanks" replied Jake as Callie walked out to her car and drove off.  
With Chance occupied and Callie gone, Jake sat down on a large sofa in the living room and began to read the planning file. It showed an ambitious project to turn a run-down oil refinery into a fully-fledged testing centre with on-site laboratory. It was clear that it would have been extremely expensive to complete construction, perhaps why Xenon had gone bankrupt. Leafing through the rest of the file, Jake found details on Xenon himself, including a complete employment history.  
As he was about to read the file, Chance wondered into the room.  
"Cody dozed off pretty fast," Jake said, looking up at Chance.  
"Yeah, he did. What have you got there?" he asked, looking at the open file.  
Jake looked back down to read the file as Chance sat down next to him.  
Xenon, it seemed, had a chequered employment history. He had several low-level jobs in burger joints and the like during his early life, but after graduating from Megakat City University he had been employed straight into Puma-Dyne, where he had worked in the weapons development division alongside a Professor Hackle. The details beyond that weren't given, but after 32 years of loyal work Zenon had been fired from his post, accused of industrial espionage. From there he had established his own rival to Puma-Dyne, Xenon Industries. Where he had got the money from was anyone's guess, but it had run dry before he could complete construction of the proposed plans, and the facility was left half-finished. At the bottom of the file was a phone number, and the address of the old refinery.  
"Should we give him a call?" asked Chance.  
"Worth the shot" replied Jake, taking the phone and dialling the number.  
The phone rang for several minutes before Jake gave up and put down the phone.  
"Nothing" he said, dejected.  
"It's probably the number of that refinery, so it's no wonder we can't get through" said Chance, trying to cheer Jake up.  
"But if we can't find Xenon, what can we do for Cody?" enquired Jake.  
"We'll find a way. We're the Swat Kats" said Chance.

---

At Enforcer Headquarters, Steele was busy making life hell for the Custody Sergeant again. This time he was dismissing his own responsibility for the mechanics' escape entirely, and blaming the Sergeant, who was getting more and more irritated with Steele.  
"You let them get out. You are a cretin. You are more stupid than the chewing gum on the bottom of my shoe. You hear that Sergeant. You are a moron..." ranted Steele. He was pleased to be abusing the lower orders, they had no recourse without Feral or his meddling niece being there, and with them away on the Feral's annual holiday there was no way they could get him to take action. Steele had made sure that the Enforcer radio phone that they had taken with them in case of emergency was faulty, and so guarantee that they would be out of his hair until he could fulfil his obligations to Puma-Dyne.  
He was just about to rain down another torrent of abuse onto the Custody Sergeant when a trooper entered, slightly out of breath. Seeing this new target for aggression, Steele began to launch another tirade of abuse but was cut off by the trooper.  
"Sir, someone tried to call Xenon's facility!"  
"Oh, who?" asked Steele, pausing in his attacks to listen.  
"We traced the caller to the residence of Deputy Mayor Callico Briggs" answered the trooper.  
"Damn it, that's how they got away! There's a bus to the City Hall from here, we covered the trains but not the bus. They must know Briggs somehow and have met her at City Hall..." Steele thought aloud. "Get units over there, arrest them all, and get that kid to me!"  
"Yes sir, right away sir" replied the trooper; hurrying off to do his commander's bidding before he could yell some more.

---

Meanwhile, at City Hall Callie had come through once again. Using her access code, she was able to find out that Xenon was now in Enforcer custody at a secure facility in the Megakat Desert. She picked up the phone and dialled her home number.  
"Hello Jake, it's Callie, I found out where Xenon is."  
"Oh, where? He's not at the number in his file, we tried that."  
"No, according to my computer he's been arrested and taken to some Enforcer work camp facility out in the desert."  
"What! What for?"  
"It doesn't say, it requires very high clearance to access it. Only the Enforcer commander, or acting commander, can read that part of the file. Look, there's nothing you can do about this Jake, you and Chance just stay put there, and I'll call some friends who might be able to help."  
"Who?"  
"I, err, can't tell you that. Just sit tight and look after Cody. Bye."  
And with that she hung up. Only for Razor's Swat Kat communicator to start bleeping in his pocket. He picked it up, and tried to sound different to how he had just been on the phone.  
"What can we do Miss Briggs?"  
"I need you to look into something for me..." said Callie, before explaining the situation to Jake, or as she saw it, Razor.  
"Ok, we'll deal with that for you" said Jake, and hung up. "We need to get to the Turbokat buddy" Jake said to chance. "We can't bust Xenon out of prison as mechanics! We were lucky to get away with it last time."  
"Ok, but what will we do with Cody, we can't leave him here on his own" asked Chance.  
"Don't worry, I have a plan" said Jake...


	8. A Close One

**A Close One**

"Great Plan" said Chance as they stood at a bus stop outside the entrance to Megakat Courtlands with Cody next to them. "I thought you'd figured some way to get us a car and keep Cody safe at Callie's house, but oh no, we're going to take the bus. You realise the 53 only goes to the Bayside Bus Station, and we'll have to change there, don't you?"  
"I had a thought. What if they're tracing calls to that refinery, to try and catch people trying to connect Xenon? They might have traced it back to Callie's house, in which case, we need to be out of there as soon as possible. We can't risk leaving Cody alone while we go after Xenon."  
On hearing mention of Xenon's name Cody squeaked up at them "Xenon... Daddy..."  
"What, Xenon is your father?" asked Chance, nonplussed. Cody nodded.  
"That's Strange" Jake said, "The file didn't say Xenon had any children. Still, we'll find out more when we get him back."  
"But first we've got to get back to the hangar" said Chance, underlining the fact that the bus was now due, but was nowhere to be seen.  
As they sat in the roadside shelter (it seemed Megakat Courtlands' residents deserved a decent bus stop), they became aware of approaching sirens. Throwing nervous looks at each other, they moved closer together in an effort to hide Cody. It wasn't long before the source of the sirens was evident. A veritable phalanx of Enforcer patrol cars, armoured vehicles, SWAT vans and Tanks, all augmented by several helicopters overhead, hurtled past and into Megakat Courtlands. The last car to pass, they noticed, was the Commander's special patrol car. The vehicles headed up to Callie's house, which was higher up the hill than most of the rest.  
Jake threw an "I told you so" look at Chance, who turned away feeling sheepish. As he did so, he spotted the number 53 approaching from up the road.  
"About time" Chance said, standing up and flagging down the bus. They boarded, and Cody excitedly took the front seat on the top deck as the bus pulled out.

---

Steele screeched to a halt outside Callie's house in Commander Feral's car. Many of the troopers in the raid nearly saluted, thinking their commander was back, but they returned to their tasks when they saw Steele emerge from the vehicle. Steele marched straight over to the paddy wagon parked outside the house and flung the back doors open, expecting to see two arrested mechanics and the kid inside. He was positively apoplectic with rage when he found the vehicle empty, and rounded on a sergeant who was passing.  
"What is the meaning of this?" Steele bellowed, "Why are there not prisoners in custody? I send you to do a simple job you bunch of..." but Steele was cut off before he could finish his expletive.  
"They weren't here" announced the acting-Lieutenant, walking over to Steele.  
"They made the bloody call to the bloody refinery from this bloody house you bloody cretin! Of course they were here" Steele replied.  
"Use of the past tense, Steele. 'Were' here. As in, 'were here before, but are not here now'. If you had acted sooner then perhaps we might have apprehended the suspects" the Lieutenant said, smug that he could talk this way to the arrogant little tosspot. Lieutenant Felina Feral herself had appointed him to the post, and had given instructions that he not be removed from it, so Steele had little recourse against him.  
Steele looked as if he were about to launch another tirade, but instead he stalked into the house, where the three troopers from earlier were consulting the readout from a Geiger Counter-type device.  
"Well? What does it say?" Steele barked at them impatiently, his joust with the Lieutenant having bruised his ego somewhat.  
"They were here" the leading trooper told him "we've picked up traces of Katalyst 101, its faint, but if we get a chopper with one of these fitted in the air, we could use the greasy isotopes emitted by that staff to track it. That is, if they've not dumped it."  
"No, they've not dumped it, that kid was raised with the thing, he'd never let it go voluntarily" the second trooper said.  
"Look, its moot anyway sir, we can't track it over long distances, the isotopes only remain greasy for a matter of ten minutes or so before they dissipate, unless we have some idea where to search for it, it's useless" added the third trooper.  
Steele was silent for a moment, before kicking the glass coffee table over in a fit of rage. It didn't smash, so Steele brought a side lamp crashing down on top of it, which did shatter the glass. Satisfied, Steele wondered over to the window, which looked down to the road.  
"I wonder how they got away?" one of the troopers said.  
Steele ignored the question staring out of the window. He watched as a number 53 bus from the Bayside Terminal pulled up outside the Courtlands and disgorged a group of kats from it.  
"Damn it!" Steele yelled as the bus pulled off towards Megakat Biochemical. He slammed his fist down on the windowsill, sending a spider web of cracks scurrying across it. "The bloody bus again! That's how they got out!" he shouted, grabbing the Geiger counter from the troopers and running down to the road.  
When he reached the bus stop, he activated the machine and consulted the readout. Sure enough, it showed they had been there.  
"Right, where could they have gone? Where do the buses go?" Steele demanded of the troopers, who had followed him.  
One went over to the bus stop, and consulted the timetable. "The only bus through here is the 53, goes to Megakat Biochemical that way, and to the Bayside Bus Station that way" he said, gesturing in each direction.  
"Right, get a chopper down to the bus station with this thing, and track it" Steele ordered. As the troopers ran back to where the helicopter had landed, Steele grabbed the leader's arm "don't fail me again" he said.


	9. Tracking

**Tracking**

The number 53 arrived at Bayside Bus Station some 25 minutes later, thanks to some very aggressive driving through the usually packed streets. The trio disembarked, and headed through the terminal to its upper level, where services towards Ashland and Carcer City left from, Cody still clutching the staff Jake had given back to him when they had left Callie's house. They walked out into the boarding bay, and had to run to catch a bus bearing the legend "Carcer City via Megakat Bridge" in its windscreen before it left.  
Slightly out of breath, they took seats halfway down the top deck (the front seats were already occupied) and felt glad to be getting a bit nearer home as their bus gathered speed along Yeovil Boulevard towards the bridge.  
It wasn't long before the bus was approaching the junkyard, and the trio got up to disembark, but the bus hurtled straight past. Chance made to remonstrate with the driver for his failure to stop, but was stopped by Jake who pointed out to him that the bus stop opposite the yard was gone, so it was an easy mistake to have made. The driver reluctantly stopped further down the road to let them off, and made a point of driving through a puddle, splashing Chance with water, as he drove off.  
"Who was the bloody muppet who took away the stop..." the dampened Chance muttered as he walked back. Jake almost told him who, but didn't think it would help; Chance's mood always went south when he was wet.  
They were quickly back in the garage, which was still in a state of devastation from the attack earlier. Burke and Murray had compounded the problem by leaving another load of trash in front of it all while they had been gone. Picking their way carefully through the disaster zone, they headed down the access ladder to the hangar, which, mercifully, had not been breached.  
Jake and Chance left Cody to admire the jet while they went to change into their flight suits, but before long they were back and ready to take off. T-Bone strapped Cody into a jump-seat fitted in the bomb bay, and activated the platform that would lift them down to the runway. As the light flicked from red to green, he slammed the jet to maximum thrust and it shot like a bullet from a gun out of the concealed entrance into the skies of Megakat City. T-Bone felt great to finally be back in the jet after all his recent escapades on buses.

---

The Enforcer troopers had seconded one of the choppers used in the initial raid on Callie's house, and were now tracing the route of the 53 towards the Bayside Bus Station.  
"How're you doing" the leader asked his comrade, who was leaning out of the chopper with their Geiger Counter.  
"I'm picking up a faint trail, but it's not very strong. We need to get a lock soon or we'll lose them" he shouted back over the noise of the rotors.  
"We're closing on the bus station" the pilot told them, and sure enough, the concrete sprawl of the Bayside Terminal was stretching out before them, red buses scurrying like ants in and out of their concrete home.  
"Signal's getting stronger!" the trooper said, leaning out further to take a better reading.  
"Right, put us down in that park and call for backup. I'm taking no chances, we'll isolate them in the building and go in with everything we have" the leader shouted into his headset.  
"But sir, what if they've already got another bus out? It is an interchange terminal, after all" the pilot said, voicing a concern that the lead trooper had not conceived of.  
"Shit" was the rather unenigmatic reply from the lead trooper, as the pilot put the chopper down in a park adjacent to the terminal. Thinking on his feet, the leader led his subordinates across the park and headed into the bus station's security control centre.  
"You can't come in here!" the security controller shouted from behind a bank of monitors as the three entered.  
"We are Enforcers! We can go where we wish!" the lead trooper barked at the kat, who decided arguing was decidedly risky. "Three suspects entered here on a number 53 from Megakat Courtlands, I need to know where they went" the lead trooper shouted into the ear of the controller. "NOW!" he added, somewhat unnecessarily as the controller was already pulling up the CCTV footage from the unloading bays. As he wound the tapes back, kats surreally walked backwards onto buses at high speed before the vehicles reversed out of the entrance.  
"Stop! That's them!" one of the troopers shouted as two kats walking with a smaller one between them appeared on the screen. The controller freeze-framed the camera, and, sure enough, there were Chance and Jake escorting Cody off the bus.  
"Tell me where they went, now! What bus did they get?" the leader said, jumping down the throat of the poor security kat.  
"That's a lot of buses sir" the controller said "There's urban services to all points of the compass, the road back to the depot for buses out of service and there are a load of long-distance services across the Megakat Bridge to Carcer City, Ashland, and a bunch of other places, and they all go from different parts of the site. You'll need to be more specific."  
"Sir" one of the troopers said to his leader "we picked up those mechanics out at the junkyard. Only the coaches go that way, when they're doing that stop-off at the golf course" the leader looked askance at his comrade, having never thought before he was a golfer. "I had to visit my mother in Ashland. I took the bus" the trooper said to his leader quickly, picking up on the look.  
Turning his attention from his comrade's leisure activities, the leader told the controller to pull up the footage from the coach and long-distance service bay. The bank of monitors before them switched over to the current time shots of upper bus bay.  
"Oh, this will take forever, we'll never find them!" the leading trooper said to no-one in particular.  
"Well, I could use the camera tracking system" the controller suggested, bracing himself for a barrage of abuse from the troopers.  
"Why didn't you bloody say that then, set to it!" the trooper yelled, proving the controller's defensive action necessary.  
The controller manipulated the keyboard in front of him, and very quickly the computer had locked onto the image of the three kats leaving the number 53 and was following the progress they had made through the terminal. The trooper's leader was quietly grateful that United Busways had possessed the foresight to install such a state-of-the-art CCTV system into its terminal, and began to feel slightly guilty for having abused the controller.  
"There, that's them!" he shouted, pointing at one of the upper monitors as the CCTV tracked them into the coach bay. Frozen on the screen were Jake, Chance and Cody running for the bus.  
"That's the service to Carcer City, departed about half an hour ago" the controller said to his audience. "Do you want me to try and raise the bus they're on?"  
"Yes" the lead trooper said, rather more meekly than he had been speaking previously.  
"Charlie Sierra One Four Zero Five, do you copy over?" the controller said into his radio. There was nothing but static for a moment until the driver of the bus replied.  
"Receiving you CentreComm, what is it?" the bus driver asked irritably.  
"Do you have three kats, one large tabby a kitten and..." the controller didn't have a chance to finish his sentence, as the driver interrupted him.  
"Yeah, that little shit! He started having a go at me for missing a stop that wasn't there! Can you believe it? I tell you, I get nowt but abuse in this job!"  
"Yeah, where did you let them off?" the controller asked, cutting short the driver's tirade.  
"By that old slag heap near the golf course" the driver said. The troopers looked at each other as he said this, and marched out of the room with their leader, leaving the controller to deal with the irate bus driver.  
"I should have known they'd be going back to that junkyard of theirs, send the chopper squadron out there and stop that bus!" the leader shouted at his subordinates, before they left the control room for their waiting chopper outside.

---

It wasn't long before the chopper was airborne and had joined the attack squadron heading for the junkyard.  
"It's a good thing we found the bus they used, this Geiger counter is going berserk" the trooper operating it said "its showing that they're actually moving towards us, which is a bit strange..." he was interrupted by Steele, who had joined them at the Bus Station.  
"Stop pissing about with that thing, we don't need it any more" Steele barked, ever his irascible self. But the lead trooper took more of an interest.  
"What exactly is it showing?" he asked.  
"Well, if this is accurate, they're travelling pretty quickly towards us from the direction of that junkyard" the counter's operator replied before he was cut off by the pilot.  
"Sir, I'm reading the Swat Kats closing on us, what should we do?" the pilot asked Steele.  
Steele looked at the lead trooper, and their exchanged glance confirmed they were both thinking along the same lines. The counter was reading an inbound signal; the Swat Kats were inbound to their location.  
"Sir?" the pilot asked again.  
"Tell all choppers; stop the Swat Kats at any cost" Steele told him. The pilot stared at him for a moment, not sure if the order was for real.  
"The Swat Kats are assisting the suspects, and probably have the kid on board! Stop them, now!" Steele yelled back.  
Reluctantly, the pilot passed on the order to the rest if the squadron.


	10. The Confrontation

**The Confrontation**

"I wonder if Steele is still rattling around Callie's house looking for us?" Razor asked T-Bone as the Turbokat took them high over Megakat City towards the Enforcer facility Callie had told them Xenon was at.  
T-Bone didn't have an opportunity to reply to Razor's comment, as they rounded Megakat Tower to see an entire squadron of Enforcer choppers blocking their path, guns primed and ready.  
T-Bone slammed the air brakes on and put the jet into hover mode. "This doesn't look good buddy" he said to Razor.  
Over the radio, Steele's smug voice resonated from the speakers in the Turbokat. "Stop right there, and hand over the host immediately."  
T-Bone was surprised "Host? Cody?" he wondered aloud.  
Razor brought up the bomb-bay camera on the viewscreen, knowing that there were speakers fitted throughout the jet. Cody was huddled in his seat, shaking in fear.  
"You shall not pass this point" Steele added, firing several warning shots over the Turbokat.  
"That voice, its Lieutenant Steele!" Jake exclaimed. "If that's the case, then Feral and Felina aren't with them at all, they'd never let that weasel run a show like this on his own. I should have known something was up."  
"That's all very well and good buddy, but what do we do now?" T-Bone asked.  
There was a moment of silence. Well, on the radio there was, in his chopper Steele was yelling at the pilot instructions to prepare for taking Cody once the Swat Kats landed, fully anticipating that the Swat Kats would comply with his demands.  
In one of the attack choppers meanwhile, the pilots were talking. "Wonder how the SWAT Kats got him..." one wondered aloud.  
His co-pilot shook his head, "Steele says Xenon knew them, maybe he sold those weapons they always have to them?"  
The pilot rubbed the back of his neck, "I don't know. I don't think that's it. But I guess Steele wouldn't lie about that, would he?"  
The co-pilot grinned, "Who cares? Nod and agree and he won't yell." He and the pilot started laughing, and waited for the Swat Kats to act.  
In the Turbokat, Razor shook his head, "What are we going to do? We've got to lose them so we can go release Xenon."  
T-Bone grinned, nodding in satisfaction, "Alright Cody, hold on. This is going to get fun."  
And with that he pushed the throttle forward to its highest notch, and the Turbokat hurtled right into the midst of the choppers, which seemed to confuse the pilots and Steele, who was cursing rather animatedly on the radio to all of his troops.  
Razor sighed, shaking his head, "Feral would do his nut if he heard someone talking to his troops like that."  
T-Bone nodded, "Just try not to use all of our ammo on them, will you?"  
"Don't worry, buddy" Razor grinned "I've got it covered."  
With a jolt that shook the jet, T-Bone maxed out the afterburners and pointed the Turbokat at the ground. The Enforcer choppers gave chase as best they could, with Steele still screaming blue murder over the radio, but they were seriously outclassed.  
T-Bone guided the Turbokat skilfully through the canyon-like streets of Megakat City, staying low to prevent the chopper pilots getting close enough for a shot.  
"We can't do this forever, buddy" said Razor.  
"I know, get your missiles ready, we're going in!" replied T-Bone.  
With that, he pulled the control stick back, pointing the nose at the sky. The jet shot out from between the buildings like a cork out of a bottle, stunning the chopper pilots who were still looking for the Turbokat between the buildings.  
"Ok Razor, do your thing!" shouted T-Bone to his partner, aiming the jet straight at the first group of incoming choppers.  
"Slicer missiles, locked, loaded, away!" shouted Razor, firing three missiles at the approaching choppers.  
Deploying mid-air, the missiles hit their marks, one even taking out two of the choppers, slices of which were falling to down to earth.  
"Now, let's see if you can fly those without rotors!" Razor said, activating the cement machine gun.  
He targeted the centre of the chopper's rotating blades, and fired. The cement gummed up the rotors on no less than four of the oncoming choppers, losing them their ability to stay airborne.  
Steele was yelling frantically over the radio for the remaining choppers to engage, but their pilots knew they were overpowered, and refused, even in the face of the thinly-veiled threats from Steele. Infuriated, Steele instructed his own pilot to give chase to the Turbokat.  
"He just doesn't know when to quit" said Razor, preparing to fire another missile. Before he could though, Steele's random firing scored a hit on the weapons bay of the Turbokat, jamming the bomb bay doors closed. Unable to fire any of his trademark missiles, Razor panicked.  
T-Bone slowed the Turbokat, allowing Steele to close in, right on their tail.  
"What are you doing?" asked Razor, incredulously.  
"I've got a crazy idea..." replied T-Bone, continuing to reduce throttle.  
Steele was now practically on top of the Turbokat, and thought they were surrendering. A smug look of satisfaction spread across his face. This was quickly removed when he saw the afterburners begin to flare. T-Bone jammed the throttle as far as it would go, hurtling the jet to maximum speed in seconds.  
Steele was left high and dry. Literally. He had flown so close to the back of the Turbokat that when the afterburners ignited, the resulting flames had shot right into his chopper, shattering the windscreen. His pilot had seen it coming, and ducked down, but Steele was left blinking in surprise, with his facial fur burned to a crisp. All he saw was the Turbokat disappearing towards the horizon. He was so shocked, and charred, that he couldn't even muster an insult.


	11. Infiltration

**Infiltration**

After losing the last of their Enforcer pursuers, the two Swat Kats and their young charge breathed a sigh of relief. T-Bone checked his heading and made adjustments to the course and speed, but Razor was more preoccupied.  
"Don't you think something was wrong there T-Bone?" he asked, cautiously bringing up the nub of his thoughts.  
"What, aside from the fact the Enforcers tried to shoot us out of the sky on Steele's command?" T-Bone replied sarcastically.  
"Exactly" said Razor. "Isn't it odd that Feral wasn't there at all? I mean, if he was told about what happened the other night he would be hopping mad right now, but there was no sign of him or Felina in that chopper squadron."  
"Yeah, I noticed that too" T-Bone replied. "Steele must have got Feral out the way somehow."  
They were cut short in their conversation as the instrument panel began to emit a harsh beeping noise, signalling that they were approaching their destination. T-Bone throttled back as they approached the site and brought the Turbokat down behind the cover of some trees. They were up on a small rise overlooking the heavily guarded complex of buildings below.  
"So how are we getting in?" T-Bone asked Razor.  
"We'll need that staff of yours again, Cody. If you would" he replied.  
Cody raised the staff and banged it down into the ground, the diodes lit up and wind began to swirl. The wind whipped the desert-like terrain around the facility into a fully-blown dust bowl, which they used as cover to get close to the chain-link perimeter fence. T-Bone and Razor cut a hole in the fence with ease, and they headed through with Cody close behind, holding the staff aloft.  
One of the guards spotted them, but he was quickly neutralised by a stun dart from Razor's glovatrix which sent him straight off into a deep sleep. T-Bone grabbed the guard's key card as they headed into the shadow of building.  
Once they were under cover, Cody lowered the staff, causing the storm to subside almost instantly. Weakened by the effort of running while maintaining the storm, he collapsed on the ground. T-Bone ran over to Cody's body as he fell, but to his relief Cody was still breathing.  
"That's what happened last time he did that" Razor observed.  
"That doesn't make it any better" T-Bone snapped back, picking up Cody's limp form and carrying him through a door that Razor had just unlocked into the facility.  
The group walked down a long corridor until it branched off in three directions.  
"Which way now?" asked T-Bone.  
"This could take all day" said Razor, but was cut of by an urgent squeaking from Cody, who had woken up in T-Bone's arms and was pointing vigorously down the centre passage.  
"What is it Cody, you know where he is?" Razor asked, not quite willing to take the word of the kid over his own instinct to not go any further until he had established more about the building.  
"Xenon... That way..." Cody said, pointing again at the centre corridor.  
"We've got nothing else to go on" said T-Bone, walking off down the corridor. Razor sighed, but followed.  
The group proceeded cautiously into the bowels of the Enforcer facility. Frequently they had to dart into broom closets and unoccupied rooms to avoid the numerous Enforcer guard patrols.  
After a time, they turned into a corridor that led down to a door marked, ominously, 'Trial Centre'.  
"Are you sure that's where his is?" T-Bone asked Cody, wondering to himself how this child seemed to know his way around this labyrinth of a building. Cody pointed at the door and nodded the affirmative.  
They walked up to the windowless door, and Razor put out a hand to stop T-Bone as he went to open the door. Activating a button on his glovatrix, Razor scanned the door.  
"Only one person in there" he announced after consulting the readout.  
"About time" replied T-Bone, throwing his full weight against the door, expecting it to crash open. Instead, T-Bone bounced off it, reeling with shock.  
"You could try the key card" said Razor sarcastically, using the access card he had taken from the guard on the swipe panel next to the door, which swung open.  
Inside was pitch black, but as they entered and their eyes became accustomed to the gloom, they noticed a figure sitting, hunched, on a bed...

---

Back at Enforcer Headquarters, all hell was in the process of breaking loose. Steele, as had become his custom, was marching through the building shouting at anyone who crossed his path. As far as he was concerned, the Swat Kats' escape with his anti-mutagen was nothing short of catastrophic. Worse, he had been informed by a guard at the railway station that Commander Feral & his niece were catching an earlier train back, and would have returned by the end of the day. His plans were in ruins, and he had no idea how to salvage things. A passing trooper braced himself to take some abuse, which would have been forthcoming had a secretary not run up to Steele and announced that Puma-Dyne's representatives had arrived.  
Steele tried to make himself look rather less dishevelled as he entered the conference room where three kats from Puma-Dyne waited.  
"Good Afternoon" Steele said in a voice desperate to sound ingratiating.  
"No, _Acting_ Commander Steele, it is not." said the first kat.  
"Indeed, it would be quite accurate to describe the situation as a deeply bad afternoon" seconded the next kat.  
"Certainly it is a dismal afternoon" the third kat stated, rather unnecessarily.  
"Well, dismal may be going a bit far... Err, things are in hand, well in hand, all will be done, yes, all will, err, be done in time, well in time, yes..." Steele blurted out in a rush.  
"No, they are not well in hand, will not be done in time, and dismal is not going remotely far enough" the first kat replied.  
"Indeed, you have failed magnificently to achieve any of the goals set to you, and have achieved disastrous results in what you have done" the second kat added.  
"Certainly, you have made a thoroughly disgraceful hash of affairs" the third continued, again, somewhat unnecessarily.  
"L-L-Look, perhaps things are not going as per the plan, b-b-but my Enforcers will handle it" stammered an increasingly nervous Steele.  
"No. They are not _your_ Enforcers, and they will _not_ handle it" said the first kat.  
"Indeed, you are to be commended only in your absurd pursuance of this claim that things will work out" added the second kat.  
"Certainly, things have reached a stage that we will no longer continue with our arrangement" continued the third kat, in his first useful statement of the conference.  
"You, you, you can't do that!" Steele stuttered as he attempted to salvage the situation.  
"No, Feral will arrive back shortly and discover the extent of the situation. You have failed in your duties to us, so we will not honour ours to you. We have our own resources, and will deal with the situation in-house as of now" said the first kat.  
"Indeed, our own personnel will handle the situation." added the second kat.  
"Certainly" the third kat said, before holding up the contract Steele had signed with them, and setting fire to it. The ashes fluttered to the ground before Steele's dismayed eyes.  
"No longer are you associated with Puma-Dyne" said the first kat.  
"Indeed, our contract is now terminated" added the second.  
"Certainly, you may consider yourself retired from genetic engineering testing" the third kat added, returning to his stating of the obvious.  
The three Puma-Dyne kats walked past Steele and headed out of the building. For the second time that day, Steele was left speechless. It took him a while to recover his composure. Once he had, he called the three troopers he had sent out to the bus up to his office.  
"Right, damage limitation time" he started. "We need to ensure that Feral does not get wind of what has happened. I'm not going down alone if Feral does find out" he threatened.  
"What do you plan to do?" asked the lead trooper. "How can you destroy all the evidence?"  
"Easy. My good friends at Puma-Dyne have already destroyed any evidence of our employment through them, so the loose ends that need tidying up are just the two mutated prisoners and the kid. Surely, you can handle those?" Steele replied.  
"Sir, the mutants could have become anything by now..." started the trooper, but he was cut off by Steele.  
"As if I would entrust dealing with them to you imbeciles!" bellowed Steele, in a return to his usual form. "All I want from you is to ensure that that kid is on the six o'clock news, or you will be all over the headlines by ten!" The three troopers decided to get out while the going was good, and headed down to the vehicle pool.  
"Right" said the lead trooper as they went down in the lift "fortunately, we know that they'll probably take the kid to find Xenon, and he's at the work camp out in the desert. We'll pound that facility into the dust, and if we're lucky, we'll be able to frame up Viper or Dark Kat and leave them to the Swat Kats."  
Despite the clearly gratuitous destruction entailed in the plan, the subordinate troopers followed their leader into a tank and headed for the prison camp, the rest of the tank battalion in tow...


	12. Revelations

**Revelations**

The trio walked further into the room, and as they penetrated deeper into its darkened depths, shapes on the walls began to appear more clearly. The room was, or at least, had been, some kind of laboratory. There were long tables running along each wall, lined the accoutrements of an advanced genetic test centre, but much of it was dusty and looked not to have been moved in years. The longer they spent in there, the more they noticed the jars containing preserved Kat organs, limbs and even what looked to be a foetus. Even stranger, there seemed to be a large collection of metal organs displayed on the shelves, their shapes indicating their function.  
They walked further inside, the hunched figure still motionless on the bed in the centre of the room. They were in an increasing state of shock at what they were seeing in the room. But there was one item that seemed distinctly out of place; a framed photograph stood on a shelf near the door. It was so comprehensively covered with dust that Razor couldn't make anything out. He blew the dust off, revealing a shot of two youthful-looking Kats in white lab coats outside Puma-Dyne labs. One of them was holding a small kitten, no more than a few weeks old, in his arms, the other had a young she Kat next to him, holding his hand. Razor looked at the label on the bottom of the picture.  
"Doctors Xenon & Hackle with the modified mutagen vessels" he read aloud. "What does that mean?"  
"It means" the hunched figure said, startling them all, "that I created the ultimate weapon against the ultimate virus."  
The three of them turned to look at the figure, who had stood up from the bed. He had the appearance of one who had once been handsome, but had long since deteriorated. His eyes were sunken, and his fur matted. He was wearing a shabby lab coat that had been darned in several places and had perhaps once been white. He stared at the three Kats in turn, his eyes pausing only briefly on T-Bone and Razor, but lingering on Cody, who hid behind T-Bone's leg in fear.  
The figure stepped forward, limping slowly towards Cody, who gasped at the emaciated figure approaching him.  
"Its been a long time since I last saw you" he said to Cody, who retreated further behind T-Bone until the figure bent over into the shaft of light coming through the open door. "Yes" he said, simply.  
Cody stared for a moment, before slowly emerging from behind the shield of T-Bone. "Dad...Daddy?" he asked, tentatively walking forward.  
"Yes" said Xenon.  
"Daddy!" Cody shouted, running forward to hug his father, while a disapproving T-Bone looked on at the reunion.  
Xenon lifted his child up onto the bed. It was obviously an effort for him; he struggled to hold the small kitten in his weakened state. He looked Cody over more in the manner of an engineer examining an engine than a father looking over his child.  
"Hmmm" he said, thoughtfully. "Your voice system is damaged, but I can fix that" he said, reaching for a scanning device on one of the workbenches.  
Having recovered his composure from the surprise of the reunion, Razor asked the obvious. "Wait, you mean Cody isn't... A Kat?"  
"Well, yes and no" Xenon answered. "He was created in a laboratory, designed for a purpose, built from inorganic components in many places. So, in that way, he is not. But at heart, he is what he is, made to help Kat-kind."  
"Help people? How?" T-Bone stuttered, trying to get his head around what he was hearing. "Not a Kat, how can he not be?"  
"Puma-Dyne have created many things, forces for good and evil. But it was I who created the ultimate evil. The epitome of malice; a weapon that wouldn't merely kill or maim, but would destroy what made a Kat themselves and turn them on everyone around them" Xenon explained. "I was young, full of ambition. I wanted promotion and glory, but when I saw what my creation did, well, I couldn't forgive myself. It mutates, you see. Destroying the individual and creating a monster that is forever changing and is driven be one desire; one base instinct; the need to feed."  
T-Bone shuddered. "Like the time Viper mutated the city" he said. "I've been through something like that before."  
"What I created was given a name at the centre we tested it at; 'The Pandemic'. It couldn't be cured with the conventional anti-mutagens we used to try and treat it..." Xenon tailed off, sighing. "Only an adapted form of anti-mutagen would be effective against it. I had to create something that could fight it, or Kat-kind could have been destroyed. Puma-Dyne let me start work on project CODEE. The Counter-Organic Defence Engineering Establishment was meant to create some way of fighting The Pandemic effectively both as a pre-infection preventative and a post-infection cure. I wish I hadn't been so foolish. I thought Puma-Dyne wanted to help Kat-kind, but they only wanted the cure because they could never have sold the virus without it; no one would buy something so dangerous if they could not control it. But we did succeed, and the result is here for all to see."  
"What do you mean, where is the result?" Razor asked, to which Xenon merely looked at Cody.  
"But... You mean..." T-Bone stammered.  
"Yes" said Xenon. "Cody is a living vaccine and cure. In his very veins flows the modified anti-mutagen. It required a living host to grow correctly, so we created two vessels to carry it. Unfortunately, it was very volatile when they were first born. It attacked their bodies, and they required a number of replacement organs" he finished, gesticulating towards the range of metal organs arrayed around the room.  
"So why are they trying to destroy Cody, if they need him as a host?" T-Bone asked.  
"They have probably extracted some of his blood. Now the anti-mutagen is fully formed inside him one phial of his blood could theoretically be used to mass-produce the anti-mutagen in vast quantities" Xenon explained. "If they're trying to destroy him, that can only mean one thing."  
"What?" Razor asked, urgently.  
"It means that the element at Puma-Dyne that put me into the project in the first place is going to unleash The Pandemic on the City" Xenon answered.  
"Why would they do that?" T-Bone burst out "it would be madness!"  
"Don't you see?" Xenon said. "Without anyone infected, vaccines and cures are worthless. But if The Pandemic gets widespread, then the value of those will skyrocket. Puma-Dyne will be able to charge however much they like for the vaccine, especially if they have total control of all the anti-mutagen. That is why they smeared me name and destroyed my company. They wanted total control over it, and I knew too much. The vaccine and the cure are extremely cheap to mass-produce, and they knew if I was allowed to produce it myself I would undercut them. I thought having a public company to sell it through would have protected me, but there is an element at Puma-Dyne that will stop at nothing to protect their profit margins."  
"So, basically, you just wanted to make the vaccine available to more people, and they destroyed you for it" Razor said.  
"Yes, I tried to do good, but Puma-Dyne wanted to use the victims of The Pandemic as a means of making money."  
T-Bone and Razor looked at each other, the sheer weight of the conversation etching itself in the expressions on their faces. While they were getting their heads around it, Xenon manipulated a magnetic screwdriver that had been sitting on a bench to fiddle with Cody's vocal chords.  
"Yes T-Bone, I'm a living vaccine" Cody said, his mechanical voice box repaired.  
"You can talk now Cody?" T-Bone asked, slightly surprised.  
"His speech was damaged by the anti-mutagen when he was younger, but I've fixed it, so he can talk more clearly now" Xenon explained.  
"T-Bone, I'm sorry about what happened, you didn't need to be dragged into this" Cody said.  
"It's okay kiddo, I promised to protect you, and I will do that" T-Bone replied.  
Xenon looked admiringly at Cody. "That's good Cody, you made friends despite what you are" he said.  
"There's still something I don't get" said Razor. "Why are the Enforcers holding you? Isn't Puma-Dyne handling this?"  
"I'm not sure myself, but I did overhear a sergeant saying that I was being held on the orders of a Commander Steele. Maybe he's on Puma-Dyne payroll?" Xenon suggested.  
"A deal... That would explain it..." Razor said. "Who would have thought that Steele was capable of something like that."  
"Perhaps the Boot kissing finally gave him some brains" T-Bone sarcastically suggested.  
"There's nothing we can do about that for the moment though, right now we need to figure out what we're going to do now." Razor said.  
"Well, I need to get out of here and finish what I started. I need to see professor Hackle, he knows my research and he could help. If we could get back to my refinery facility I could take steps to putting out the vaccine." Xenon told them.  
"Then lets not hang around here, then" T-Bone said.


	13. Escape Again

**Escape. Again.**

The four of them began to head towards the door to leave, but on hearing the sound of running footsteps they retreated back into the darkened room. At the end of the corridor, Enforcers were running towards the lifts up to ground level.  
Had they been outside, it would have been clear why they were running upstairs. Enforcer tanks and choppers had initiated a full-on assault of the camp. The noise of gunfire was deafening, as the full might of the Enforcer Tank Corps was brought to bear on the small facility. The lucky few had already got out; the others had to take shelter in the few heavily armoured buildings.  
"Ooh, yeah!" said the leading trooper, as he ordered more tanks to fire on the camp. As they added their firepower, the last of the remaining watch towers collapsed with an almighty crash onto the main prison block. Prisoners began running out, trying to make good their newfound freedom, but were gunned down before they even reached the collapsed perimeter fence.  
As the bombardment continued, the few thinly-built structures left were beginning to concede defeat, walls collapsing and roofs caving in under the weight of impact.  
Down in the bowels of the building, the four were becoming all too well aware of the situation. The heavy shelling was causing the roofs of the underground corridors to collapse, and they knew there was only a matter of time before what remained of the structure collapsed. Shielding Cody and Xenon as best they could from falling masonry, the Swat Kats were trying to get to the stairwell they had come down, knowing the lift would be far too risky. As they neared their escape route, a noise of metal-on-concrete fell down through the stairwell shaft to their ears. Moments later, an Enforcer tank marked with the camp's own logo crashed down the shaft, its thin armour crumpling as it hit the deck, along with tons of concrete stairs. There was no way back up.  
T-Bone and Razor looked at each other with worried looks. They could hardly rely on the lift, surely. As if in answer to their question, they heard the noise of the lift approaching them on the lowest floor. Puzzled, they cast enquiring looks at one another before another sound became audible over the noise of the approaching lift; screams.  
Acting instinctively, the Swat Kats grabbed their charges and threw them to the ground before hitting the deck themselves, and not a moment too soon.  
The lift had fallen from almost the top level, and hit the basement floor so hard that it blasted the doors clean off. They flew down the corridor, embedding in the end wall. The group stood up, looking at the hole where the lift should be. All that was left was a crumpled heap of metal, and at least one hapless Enforcer amidst it.  
T-Bone approached the shaft and looked up. It appeared to still be sound, but there was no way of knowing how long it would stay like that.  
"Come on!" Razor yelled, having joined T-Bone at the shaft "we've got to get out while we still can!"  
They activated their rocket packs, and each grabbed hold of one of their entourage. They fired up the jets and quickly ascended the shaft, only once having to dodge a piece of falling concrete.  
They emerged at the top of the shaft into a wrecked reception room. Several bodies were visible underneath collapsed roofing beams, and a few Kats were still huddled behind the main desk; the only piece of furniture still in place.  
"Steele's really going to town here" T-Bone quipped to Razor, who was not interested in humorous repartee.  
"We need to figure a way out of here" he said, joining the Kats behind the desk. "Is there any way out?" he asked a Kat wearing a sergeant's uniform.  
"No, not unless they stop firing. If they did, there's an outbuilding across the concourse, it has an Armoured Personnel Carrier in it which could get us out, but we can't reach it" he replied in a panic.  
While they were talking, Cody had begun to wonder towards the shattered entrance holding his staff. Once again, a sandstorm blew up around the camp, and the enforcers on the hill stopped firing.  
"Go, go, go!" yelled Razor to the survivors, who didn't need telling twice. They ran for the door, heading straight for the outbuilding. The Swat Kats joined them, and T-Bone paused at the entrance to pick up Cody.  
"No!" Cody shouted, as T-Bone made to pick him up "I can't keep this up on the move again, go!"  
Reluctantly, T-Bone headed into the storm in the direction everyone else had taken. Cody saw him disappear into the sand, and lowered his staff.  
Immediately, the storm began to lift, and Cody took the last opportunity to run for the outbuilding.  
"Right, recommence fire" yelled Steele, who had just arrived by chopper, to his tank battery, which again opened fire on the camp.  
As visibility returned, T-Bone looked back over his shoulder as the others ran into the building. He saw Cody running towards him, but so had one of the tank commanders, who fired a shell right at him. It missed, hitting the remnants of the administration building they had just left, but the blast was enough to throw Cody headlong into the concrete wall. Chance picked him up, and ran with him into the building, just as another shell exploded behind him.  
The APC was partially covered by fallen debris, but those already there had done a good job of moving enough of this off it, and they all piled in. The sergeant was driving, and no sooner had T-Bone climbed into the vehicle with Cody it set off.  
The door was closed, but that was no obstacle. The armoured vehicle smashed through the wall with ease, and headed towards the back of the facility on Razor's instruction. The tanks and the choppers tried to fire, but the APC was too fast, and they couldn't get off an accurate shot.  
When the vehicle smashed through the fence and pulled up next to the Turbokat, Razor, T-Bone and Xenon, clutching Cody in his arms, jumped out. They watched for a moment as the vehicle drove off, before noticing the tank battery on the ridge above the facility beginning to reposition itself for another barrage.  
The group hurried to get back in the jet, but were cut short when several more armoured cars and tanks came around a corner from where they had been hiding behind a destroyed out-building. The tanks trained their turrets on the jet, before rolling to a halt. The group watched as the hatch on the nearest tank popped open, to reveal an exultant Steele, who jumped out with his mega phone.  
"Cease Fire! We've got them surrounded!" he shouted through it, somewhat needlessly.  
The Enforcers kept their weapons trained on the Swat Kats, but didn't fire. Steele slowly walked towards them with an extremely smug look on his face.  
"The so called Swat Kats breaking into an Enforcer facility" he said, in a mock-serious tone. He tutted at them. "Shame on you guys."  
"That's rich coming from you!" T-Bone shouted back, defiantly. "We know about your dealings with Puma-Dyne! We know you're in league with them to make The Pandemic vaccine expensive!"  
"Xenon" Steele said, in the kind of tone one would use to a child of three. "You are such a tattletale" he added. "You were but a pothole in my road to riches, but because of those meddling Swat Kats my plan is sunk" he said, his tone becoming deeply vindictive. "But I don't hold a grudge. I even have a nice little surprise for you" he said, gesturing to a convoy approaching them from inside the base.  
Coming towards them were two armoured Enforcer transport vehicles. Designed to move valuable cargoes across the city in safety, the trucks were built to withstand bombs. They were flanked by several tanks, which were larger and more heavily armoured than the standard model. They had been built by Puma-Dyne based on the failed Behemoth Project, and were designed to handle virtually anything.  
"That's a lot of hardware" Razor said to his partner "I wonder why they need all that."  
The reason for such heavy-duty vehicles became evident when the convoy halted just inside the perimeter of the former Enforcer Base. The trucks stopped moving forwards, but didn't stop moving entirely. They rocked from side to side as if something very large were crashing around inside them. All the Enforcers seemed on edge as the two trucks reversed so their cargo bay doors faced the Swat Kats. This new aspect on the vehicles showed how even the heavy titanium doors of these trucks seemed to be having difficulty holding their contents. The doors were buckled in several places, and seemed to be ready to give way at any moment.  
"Huh? What's going on?" Cody asked Razor.  
Before he could answer, Steele walked over to the trucks, which were still rocking to and fro.  
"Let me introduce you to a friend of mine. Or, rather, some friends" he said, activating the door release buttons and retreating quickly back to the safety of his tank.  
The powered doors opened slowly, and as they did the trucks stopped rocking. Once the doors had opened as far as their hinges would allow, they stopped, revealing the darkened interiors of the vehicles. For a moment, there was silence, only the metallic noises of Enforcers taking the safety catches off their weapons audible. Then an immense roar rent the air, emanating from one of the trucks. Then the vehicle shook violently and the most hellish of creatures stumbled out of it into the light.  
From where the Swat Kats stood, it looked, to all intents and purposes, like an overgrown Kat. It was covered in fur and had all the right anatomical features, but was at least nine feet tall. Only when it turned towards them did they see the full extent of the situation. Its entire right-hand side appeared to have melted, the fur gone, replaced with raw, scarred flesh. Its arm was bulging to at least twice the size it should have been, muscles rippling along its length. Its head was a misshapen blob, its mangled features barely recognisable. Cody gave an audible gasp at the horrendous vision before him. This was only aggravated when another creature emerged from the other truck. It too appeared to have had its flesh melted off, but it wasn't a uniform effect, it appeared instead in patches all over.  
"Victims..." Xenon said, the sight needing no more explanation than that.  
While the Swat Kats stared, the Enforcers had all retreated into their vehicles.  
"Well, I'll leave you guys to get acquainted" Steele said. "I have got to go and meet Feral. I need to explain why the Swat Kats just forced me to destroy this facility" he added, laughing as his tank drove towards a waiting chopper.  
The two former prisoners had seen their victims, and begun to run towards the group, their loping gate carrying them rather haphazardly towards the perimeter fence of the facility.  
"Xenon, take Cody away from here. We'll handle this" T-Bone shouted at Xenon.  
"Wait, you can't kill them, they're still Kats!" Xenon said, aghast.  
"Maybe" said Razor, trying not to panic, "but is there any way to help them?" he asked, all too well aware that the two mutants were rapidly closing the distance between them.  
"I believe so, but they must be knocked out first so I can use Cody's blood to create the serum to reverse the effects" Xenon replied.  
"Please T-Bone" Cody asked imploringly, looking at him with pleading eyes.  
"You get out of here, we'll see what we can do" T-Bone replied, not altogether convinced this was a good idea.  
"They've mutated very strong bones" said Xenon, "you can see from their body structure."  
The mutants were shaking a fence violently, and it didn't look like it would hold, so Xenon took hold of Cody and carried him into the Turbokat, while T-Bone and Razor tried to figure out how they were going to do this.  
The two mutants had been stopped short by a small section of chain-link fence that was still standing. Strangely, they seemed not to have noticed the gaping hole in the fence where the APC had driven through it. Clearly, the mutation had deprived the victims of any capacity to think rationally. They were driven only by the most basic of needs; the need to feed.

---

The Enforcer tanks had begun to retreat, heading back up the hill towards headquarters. Steele had taken off in one of the choppers towards the main railway station, hoping to meet Feral as he got off the train. He thought by presenting his story first, he might be able to retain his job. The possibility had even occurred to him that, with the right spin, he could make the whole thing seem like his triumph, and maybe even earn a promotion. He thought nothing of the Swat Kats; they would surely kill the two mutants, destroying any evidence of their existence. Perhaps the situation could be salvaged.  
"Go faster" Steele barked at the pilot, his usual bad mood restoring itself.

---

T-Bone and Razor were still trying to figure out how to simply immobilise the two mutants, when the fence gave way, and all discussion was brought to an abrupt end. They dodged the mutants, running back into the wrecked facility, where they might find some cover. They had armed their glovatrixes only with lethal weapons, and as Xenon had said, they were still Kats underneath.  
As they were pursued deeper into the wreckage of the base, they headed into a warehouse building that still seemed largely intact. Inside was dark, all the lights having gone out with the generator. The two mutants followed, crashing through the door. The Swat Kats took cover behind a support pillar. Unable to see them the mutants blundered around in the dark, crashing into obstacles.  
Razor activated his infra-red visor, and spotted them at the other end of the warehouse. Taking aim carefully, he fired a crossbow bolt at the ceiling above them. A large steel girder gave way, crashing down on top of the mutants.  
"Razor, you weren't supposed to kill them..." said T-Bone.  
"I didn't. Their bones could handle it, or at least, that's the impression Xenon gave..." replied Razor, not sounding particularly concerned.  
They moved over to the mutants. Both were still alive, although completely unconscious. The Swat Kats levered the girder off them, and deftly tied them up.  
"I don't like the idea of taking them back in the hold with Xenon and Cody" said T-Bone.  
"Me neither" replied Razor. "They'll be safe here for now, we can come back with a serum later."  
With that, the two Swat Kats headed back to their jet, and with Cody and Xenon aboard took off, heading for Xenon's oil refinery laboratory...

---

"No, they have been secured" came a voice from the back of the warehouse.  
"Indeed, the mutants have been contained" added a second.  
"Certainly, the Swat Kats are most reliable" chimed in, a trifle unnecessarily, a third voice.  
Outside, two armoured trucks with 'Puma-Dyne' logos emblazoned across their sides had pulled up, and white-coated Kats stepped out and headed into the warehouse. They collected the two mutants and loaded them into the backs of the trucks.  
"What shall we do with them, put them in cold storage? We need to keep them out of the way, right?" asked one of the drivers.  
"No, I want them in the Nemesis Program" said the owner of the first voice.  
"Indeed, we shall get some use from them yet" added the second.  
"Certainly, we can recover some value from the situation" concluded the third, once again unnecessarily...


	14. A Fateful Decision

**A Fateful Decision**

It wasn't long before the Turbokat had cleared the city and was flying across the bay to the abandoned refinery. The jet touched down on a landing platform atop one of the long-abandoned storage tanks. As they looked at the view across to the city that was spread out before them, the gravity of what they were there to do hit home.  
"Can you create enough vaccine for the whole city?" T-Bone asked as Xenon led them down the stairs.  
"I have the equipment here to do that, but it would require vast quantities of several chemicals that must be combined with the anti-mutagen inside Cody's veins" Xenon explained. "But hopefully those two examples at that Enforcer facility are the only current victims. I can create a batch of the cure to restore them to their previous selves relatively easily here, but if The Pandemic becomes more widespread we will need to generate very large quantities of the cure, and that will be more difficult. With any luck we will be able to restore those victims and then I can return here and begin mass-production of the vaccine. Then, if The Pandemic does get out no-one will be infected" Xenon explained, leading them through the doors of a building marked 'laboratory'.  
"Uh, Doctor, how are you going to make the serum for the victims?" Razor asked.  
"Leave that to me and Cody" Xenon said, taking Cody's hand and leading him into another room. "This will not take long, please, make yourselves comfortable here, we will be back shortly" Xenon added as they left.  
Xenon led Cody through to a room that was half laboratory, half operating theatre. On one side stood ranks of test tubes, beakers and scientific paraphernalia and on the other an operating table sat surrounded by medical equipment. Xenon sat Cody on the table, and deftly extracted blood from his arm. While Xenon busied himself with mixing together several chemicals in a beaker, Cody thought. For the first time in his life, people were treating him as more than a vessel for some contagion.  
"Father" Cody began, but was cut off.  
"I know Cody. You know as well I do that I really don't have much time left on this plane. I need to make certain that the vaccine can get to everyone who needs it. Maybe then I will have put a stop to the evil I created" Xenon said.  
"No, Father, there's something else" Cody said. "What is going to happen to me? Once you've put out the vaccine, what will I do?"  
"T-Bone will look after you. I wish I could do more for you. I made you to fight against a disease, but I created so much more than just a container" Xenon said, looking at Cody fondly, but wistfully. "T-Bone and Razor will see you alright" he said, turning back to what he was doing. It was painful to think of what he had put the kitten through because of what he was.  
"He's really nice, I would like that" Cody said. "He treats me like a regular Kat instead of a thing."  
Xenon kept working, adding Cody's blood to a blue liquid he had made up in a beaker. When the blood was added, the substance turned an electric red and fizzed violently.  
"Excellent" Xenon said, loading some of the contents into two small arrowheads which he could use to inject the cure directly into the victims through their thick skin. He looked at Cody again, and felt a pang of guilt for what was to come.  
"I'm Sorry Cody" he said. Cody looked back, nonplussed. Before he could ask the obvious question, Xenon butted in. "The cure is ready, we had better go."  
T-Bone and Razor were waiting in the other room, and stood up when Xenon and Cody walked back in.  
"Is everything done?" Razor asked Xenon.  
"Yes, I have prepared the cure" he replied, indicating the bag he was carrying which contained the serum. "We must return at once to those Pandemic victims, I need to administer the cure."  
With that, Xenon walked out of the door and across to the stairs up to where the Turbokat was waiting.

---

Steele's chopper touched down outside Megakat City Central Station, and the acting commander stepped out and attempted to smarten himself up. He had to get this right; his professional career depended on it.  
"Now arriving on platform twelve is the 19:21 MKC United Expressways service from Carcer City. This train terminates here" announced a disjointed electronic voice to the station as Steele entered and made for the platform specified.  
Clearly someone at MKC United had known Feral was travelling, as the train was a brand new model, and looked quite out of place next to the older units around it. Steele didn't have time to admire the locomotives though, as he could see Feral and his niece emerging from the First Class carriage. Steele put on his most ingratiating smile as he approached them.  
"I do hope you had a very pleasant holiday Comm..." Steele just had time to say before Feral seized him by the lapels and brought his face to within an inch of his own.  
"What is going on here, Steele?" Feral asked through gritted teeth. "Why do I see on the train that you've been blowing up important Enforcer facilities? Why do I see on the news that you have been attacking prisoners? AND using my name to deny them? I want answers Steele, now!" the commander concluded.  
This was not going according to plan. Steele silently cursed the train operator, MKC United, who had recently made a big thing of the TVs on their new trains. Of course they would have been showing Feral live footage of the disaster on Kats Eye News. Cursing that meddlesome reporter Gora in addition to the train company, Steele tried to answer.  
"There was a riot warning at the facility, the camp commander radioed for backup. There were some high-level detainees there and it would have been irresponsible to risk their escape. I did not order the full-on assault though, the tank commander did that. And the allegations of abuse are untrue sir, so I didn't think you would object to my using your name to the media, sir" he told Feral.  
Feral stared at Steele for a long minute, his brain mulling over what he had just been told. It all tallied perfectly with events on the news, and he already knew the tank battalion commander to be somewhat on the trigger-happy side. Feral removed his gaze from Steele and tuned to Felina, who was standing next to him.  
"What do you think?" Feral asked her.  
"If there was a risk of escape, why didn't the Swat Kats show up? The news didn't say they participated in the attack on the base at all. They would have been first on scene, knowing them" was her reply. It was somewhat ironic, as T-Bone and Razor had very much been on-scene at the time, although they hadn't been captured by the news teams.  
"Very well Steele" said Feral "I shall review the situation back at Headquarters."  
The trio walked down the platform and out of the station to the waiting chopper.  
Inside the train they had just left, the TV was still running, showing a large number of Kats running down a market street in the East Harbour district, looking terrified...

---

The smoke was still rising from the burning remnants of the Enforcer work camp when the Turbokat came over the horizon towards it. There appeared to be no one left, not even any fire-fighters to tackle the many blazes. Steele must have ordered that the duo be left to die at the hands of the mutants. The jet flew slowly over the wrecked buildings before T-Bone spotted the one where they had stashed the two Pandemic victims. As the jet touched down, the group got out and walked slowly towards the building, aware of the danger that lurked inside. If the victims had broken free of their bonds they would be a force to be reckoned with.  
"Wait by the jet Cody" T-Bone said. Cody began to protest, but T-Bone shot him a look that silenced him. Sometimes it was better not to argue.  
"Got that serum to hand doctor?" Razor asked as they approached the door of the warehouse.  
"Right here" said Xenon, showing Razor his bag.  
"Alright, lets get this over and done with" T-Bone said, throwing his weight behind the huge rolling door of the warehouse. It groaned open, throwing the interior into daylight. The three looked around, not able to see the mutants anywhere.  
"Where are they?" T-Bone asked, puzzled.  
Razor walked gingerly inside, playing his torch across the darker corners of the interior. "There's nothing in here" he said "nothing. Not even the ropes we tied them up with."  
Outside, Xenon was examining the ground around the warehouse. As Razor came back outside, he spotted the scientist examining the tyre tracks and footprints around the building.  
"What have you found?" Razor asked as he walked over.  
"Look at this" the scientist answered, standing up and pointing at the tracks. "It looks like something was loaded into vehicles. Heavy vehicles, these tracks look like something an armoured vehicle would leave. And judging from the direction, they're going to Puma-Dyne" he finished.  
"Why would Puma-Dyne want to get them back?" T-Bone asked.  
"I don't know. They may want to try and cover this up" Xenon speculated.  
"Well, we need to help them. So Puma-Dyne it is" said T-Bone, ushering Xenon back onto the jet.  
T-Bone quickly fired up the engines and lifted the aircraft off the ground, but as the jet flew across the desert towards Puma-Dyne, the emergency band radio began squawking urgently.  
"This is unit four, we're under attack here control, I repeat, we are under attack on Guildford Road, East Harbour! Need immediate assistance!" a distressed Enforcer unit was shouting into the radio.  
"Unit four, what exactly is your situation, over?" the controller asked. There was nothing but static over the line. "Unit four, this is control, come back" the controller asked again, but still did not receive a response from unit four.  
"I don't like the sound of that buddy" Razor said to T-Bone.  
"What a day were having, huh" T-Bone said, swinging the jet around and heading towards the East Harbour District.


	15. East Harbour Part One

**East Harbour (Part One)**

The Turbokat overflew Guildford Road, and the Swat Kats looked down on the scene below. It was certainly a strange sight, but not for the reason they had expected. The Guildford Road was always a busy thoroughfare; it ran between the busy market by the harbour side and the centre of the city. It had become known as bus alley to many residents on account of the large numbers of bus routes that converged on the road. But there were no buses anywhere to be seen, nor were there any cars or Kats on the pavement. Only an overturned Enforcer patrol car outside a military recruiting station gave any impression of some crisis.  
T-Bone landed the Turbokat on a bus stand in a neighbouring road, the only area wide enough to accommodate the jet. The four of them clambered out and walked down the road to where the squad car lay on its roof. Razor ran over to it, and looked inside.  
It immediately became evident why the unit had not responded to its controller. The roof had been crushed down onto the heads of the two officers inside, and they were clearly no more. Looking around to see what had caused this, the Swat Kats could find nothing. The area was a ghost town, the only thing moving being a newspaper that was blowing along the street. It was eerily silent, which unnerved Razor who was used to this being a very busy and noisy street. This was not to be the case long, however, as the silence was suddenly punctuated by a low growling noise.  
"There's something here" Cody said, turning around to see where the noise had come from.  
The other three Kats looked around as suddenly there was an immense crashing noise, followed by the sound of metal scraping along concrete. An overturned bus came skidding on its side out of a back street. It scraped along the road, gouging up the tarmac before it struck the front of a supermarket. Its destination display was still flickering "263 Feltham Station" when the growling noise came again, much louder this time. The group watched as two huge figures came lumbering from the street the bus had come from. They headed over to where the stricken vehicle lay, and were about to recommence their attack on it when they noticed the four Kats standing in the street. They abandoned the bus, and began to run down the street at them. Reflexively, T-Bone grabbed Cody and pulled him out of the way, just in time. The two giant figures missed them by inches, and, unable to stop, fell over in their attempts to turn at speed.  
"You OK Cody?" T-Bone gasped, receiving only a vaguely affirmative nod in response.  
"It's those two victims" Xenon said, looking down the road to the two figures trying to pick themselves up. "They appear to have been enhanced with more of The Pandemic, _that's_ why Puma-Dyne took them."  
The two former prisoners recovered themselves from having missed their marks, and began another charge. T-Bone grabbed Cody and pulled him into a nearby coffee shop for cover. Razor and Xenon had taken refuge in a bookstore across the road.  
Outside, the two mutants had paused. Their limited cognitive functions unable to grasp where their prey may have gotten to.  
In the bookstore, Razor was getting frantic. He was pinned down amidst copies of Delia Katter's 'How to Cook Mice' and Dark Kat's autobiography 'Malicious Me'. Xenon was rather more composed, lifting out of his bag one of the arrow heads, red liquid contained in its head.  
"What's that?" Razor asked.  
"This is the anti-mutagen, in its purest form. We will need to make up some more when we get back, but there should be enough to handle those two." replied the doctor.  
Razor didn't need telling twice, activating the arrow launcher of his glovatrix, he slotted the first arrow into place, and took aim through the door of the shop.  
The arrow fired, and sailed in a graceful rising arc straight into the chest of the first mutant, who let out a roar of pain. Hearing this, the second mutant turned around, and began another lumbering charge towards the bookstore. Razor jumped back inside.  
From across the street T-Bone watched in horror as the second mutant made short work of demolishing the front of the shop, scattering copies of 'The Red Lynx: A Cut Above' across the street. He couldn't see the other mutant, but he knew he had to act to help Razor and Xenon, who were trapped behind the counter.  
T-Bone stepped out of the coffee shop, took aim, and fired a scrambler missile at the back of the mutant. Just as he did so, a blinding light emitted from somewhere down the street, and he threw his arm up to shield his eyes. A few seconds later it was gone, replaced by the howls from the mutant he had hit. The missile had struck its mark, and was discharging an uncomfortable amount of electricity into the mutant's back. The creature fell backwards, crushing the missile and ending the electric shock as it fell, but it was enough.  
In the time Razor had with the mutant occupied, he had loaded the second arrow and fired. Once again, his aim was true, and the arrow hit its mark. The mutant howled in agony once more, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then the skin of the mutant began to bubble, large blister-like sores popping up all over its body. These swelled to the size of bus wheels before popping, sending yellowish pus spurting everywhere. All the while, the mutant started to glow redder and redder, until a blinding white light made them all screw up their eyes and turn away. When they looked back, the mutant was gone. Where it had been now lay a rather dishevelled-looking Kat, wearing Enforcer prisoner's overalls, still with the word 'inmate' in black letters written across it.  
It was only then that T-Bone noticed the sound of helicopters overhead, and looked up. Above him, two choppers were vying for the best view of the spectacular scene below them. One was the Kats Eye News chopper, with Johnny hanging out of the side with his camera trying to get a better view. The other was an Enforcer chopper, which now seemed to be struggling to stay airborne; it was rocking around and moving dangerously close to the buildings.  
"Come on buddy, we've still got work to do" shouted Razor at T-Bone, who was still watching the movements of the enforcer chopper in utter bewilderment. Tearing his eyes from the bizarre spectacle, he followed Razor, Xenon and Cody back to the Turbokat.  
In the chopper above, the reason for the erratic flying was evident. Upon seeing the mutants' prison pinstripes, Feral, who had been flying, had abandoned his seat mid-air and charged into the back of the chopper to where Steele had been sitting. Felina was struggling with the controls, but her task wasn't helped by the Commander crashing around in the back, trying to get his hands on Steele, who was now trying to avoid the wrath of his superior.  
"You lying scumbag!" Feral was yelling at Steele "you conniving, deceitful little scuzzball!"  
After a time, he was able to seize Steele by the collar. Feral opened the door of the chopper, and dangled Steele out of it. Over in the news chopper, Johnny was trying to ensure he caught the whole thing on film.  
The commander, having caught hold of the object of his malice, had stopped yelling. With Steele now hanging out of the chopper, he told him in a level voice "I suggest you make the explanation you are about to give _phenomenally_ good."  
"Sir, I-I-I wasn't responsible, sir, I-I-I had to do it sir, they said I had to help them, sir..." His voice trailing off as he looked down. It was quite a long way.  
"I don't believe you, Steele" said Feral. "You're going to be spending the rest of your nine lives in the slammer."  
Feral pulled Steele back inside the chopper, and cuffed him, all broadcast across the entire city courtesy of Kats Eye News.

---

Across town in a boardroom, three Kats were watching the live footage.  
"No, we shall be having no more problems from Steele" the first said.  
"Indeed, he is rendered harmless to us now" added the second.  
"Certainly, Steele is no longer a threat" chimed in, somewhat unnecessarily, the third.


	16. East Harbour Part Two

**East Harbour (Part Two)**

Still down on the ground, the Swat Kats, Cody and Xenon were making towards the Turbokat. As they turned the corner, they stopped dead.  
Standing between them and their jet were a line of Enforcer tanks, but this was not what had stopped them. In front of the tanks, trying to get past them, were well over 100 mutated cats.  
They ducked into a nearby shop. T-Bone had a moment of deja-vu, thinking he was back in the last shop he had taken refuge in, but then he realised that the coffee shop chain had thousands of branches, often very close to each other.  
"What shall we do?" he asked Razor, as he crossed behind the counter and made himself a Frappichino.  
"You got any more anti-mutagen, doc?" Razor asked Xenon.  
"Yeah, and where the hell did all those come from?" T-Bone added.  
"The Pandemic is highly contagious. One bite or scratch from a mutant and it will not be long before you have converted. I didn't have the time back at my lab to produce the anti-mutagen beyond the two samples you used. I need to get back there in order to make up more, but you can bet Puma-Dyne are already on the case. They wanted this so that they could profiteer on the anti-mutagen, and force people to buy a vaccine at a tremendous markup. Most people couldn't afford it, and they will charge even more for the formula to convert someone back" Xenon told them.  
"So, how do we get back to the refinery then, sure-shot?" T-Bone asked Razor.  
"Don't worry" he replied, "I've got a plan..."  
Razor didn't get the chance to explain his plan though, as his Enforcer band radio suddenly crackled to life.  
"This is battalion command to all units. Commence fire on all hostiles" a voice said, and the air was suddenly split by the sound of cannon fire as the Enforcer tanks began their assault on the Pandemic victims. The tanks were taking no prisoners in an all-too-literal sense, and were throwing all they had at the mutants before them. So wild was their fire that many shells missed altogether, hitting buildings all down the street. A restaurant opposite the group's place of refuge exploded violently, scattering debris across the street.  
"Come on guys, we've got to bail" shouted Razor, but it was too late.  
A stray shell struck the façade of the building they stood in. Fortunately, it had hit above the glass windows of the shop, but it was still enough to hurl the four right back into the building. Moments later, another shell hit in almost the same place. T-Bone shielded Cody with his body as the roof began to cave in, the contents of the upper floors falling through to ground level. T-Bone felt Cody shaking, and held him tight.  
"Cease fire!" a voice shouted through a megaphone over the roar of the cannons. Silence fell as the tanks stopped firing. "Move out" the battalion commander shouted to his troops, and inside the group heard the sound of the tanks moving off.  
"That was close" said Razor, picking himself up off the ground.  
"Too close" T-Bone added, standing up to allow Cody to walk over to Xenon, who was brushing the dust off his lab coat.  
As they turned to leave, a creaking sound from overhead made them stop. Looking up, they saw one of the steel roof girders begin to fall. It crashed down, ripping more debris from the building as it fell. Fear rooted Cody to the spot as he looked up, seeing the girder fall towards him. Xenon saw it too, and launched himself forward, shoving Cody in the ribs. The kitten was pushed clear of the falling girder, but Xenon had put himself right in its path.  
Cody watched in horror as he saw the huge piece of metal come crashing down on top of Xenon. "Dad!" he yelled as the dust began to settle, climbing back to where Xenon lay.  
Razor followed, hoping to free the doctor, but it wasn't looking good. The beam had landed on his abdomen, and from the blood he was coughing up, it was clear a lot of damage had been done. Razor tried in vein to lift the huge piece of metal, but even with T-Bone's help couldn't manage it.  
"No" Xenon gasped as they tried once again to lever the girder off him. "It's too late for me."  
Cody was crouched down next to him crying. "Please Dad, don't go" he implored, holding onto Xenon's hand tight.  
"Don't cry Cody, you can do it; you're the key to saving them. You're the only thing that matters" Xenon said, reaching with his free hand into his pocket. He pulled out a computer disk, and handed it to Razor. "Give this to professor Hackle, he will understand it and can help with the mass production" the scientist gasped, his strength ebbing away. "And T-Bone, one favour" he said, looking towards him.  
"Sure, whatever you ask" T-Bone said, aware he was making a promise to a dying Kat.  
"Do whatever you must, but make sure you end the Pandemic forever" Xenon said.  
"I promise" T-Bone replied. The scientist smiled, and closed his eyes.  
"NO!" wailed Cody, burying his face into his fathers chest. The two Swat Kats looked at him for a moment, but time was of the essence.  
"There will be time for him to grieve later" Razor hissed to T-Bone amid Cody's continuing sobs. "Right now, we've got to get to Hackle's and stop the Pandemic."  
T-Bone sighed, but took Cody's hand and led him out of the building.  
Outside was a war zone. Debris from the buildings littered the street, huge chunks of masonry lying shattered on the road. Amidst it all lay the destroyed bodies of the Pandemic victims. What damage the virus itself had done had been compounded tenfold by the shelling from the tanks. Blood drained into the gutter, staining the street red. T-Bone tried to shield Cody from the horrific sight, but it was futile. The devastation and death was total.  
"It's sad" Razor said "Kats killing another Kats."  
"Let's just get to Hackle's" T-Bone said, heading up the road to where the Turbokat was parked.  
The three were in such a hurry to get back to the jet, they didn't notice a black unmarked van parked by the roadside. Nor did they notice the disguised camera on its roof following them as they headed back to the jet and take off.  
In the boardroom across town, footage of the Swat Kats and their charge were being shown on a large plasma screen. Three Kats were watching, and initiated a conversation  
"No, this is not ideal" said the first voice.  
"Indeed, their involvement with Hackle is a distinct setback" added the second.  
"Certainly, we will have to remedy this situation" a third stated.  
The door to the boardroom opened, and a secretary entered the room.  
"Just to let you know" the secretary said, shaking slightly as she delivered the message. "That the first batches are ready for shipment in warehouse ten" she said quickly, desperate to get out of the room.  
"No, we will not be deterred" said the first voice as the secretary left the room.  
"Indeed, with the product ready to dispatch this situation will not be allowed to escalate" added the second.  
"Certainly, we shall take action to ensure maximum success" the third added, somewhat needlessly.

---

Back at Enforcer Headquarters, Steele was experiencing the other side of the cells he had so often thrown people into. He had tried to pass the blame to someone else, but now that Feral and Felina were back there seemed to be an endless queue of agitated Enforcers desperate to tell him how bad Steele had been. The Custody Sergeant seemed particularly eager to seal Steele's fate.  
Feral, meanwhile, was giving an interview to an assembled press pack in the main conference hall.  
"Acting Commander Steele has been relieved of duty after having launched an unwarranted attack on an Enforcer facility, squandered Enforcer resources pursuing the Swat Kats and masterminding the attack on two prisoners in our custody" Feral announced to his audience. "He will face trial for these crimes, however, at this time he refuses to disclose his motive for acting this way, and as such a full investigation will ensue. Questions."  
"Ann Gora, Kats Eye News, is there any truth in suggestions that rouge elements at Puma-Dyne paid Steele to release the virus now known as 'The Pandemic'?"  
"No comment" Feral replied.  
"Donna Redkat, Megakat Times, is the Pandemic still a threat to the city?"  
"Enforcers have cordoned off the area affected by the virus. Puma-Dyne have informed city officials that they have developed an anti-mutagen capable of fighting and reversing the infection, which they have trialled with the help of the Swat Kats. The costs have not yet been disclosed, however individuals unaffected will be expected to finance their own vaccination against the contagion, the city will pay whatever it takes to reverse the effects of the virus in those already affected" Feral told the press.  
High above the city, Razor and T-Bone were incredulous.  
"Used us to trial it? Xenon made that anti-mutagen, not Puma-Dyne! How dare they!" yelled an incensed T-Bone, thumping the control panel of the jet with his fist.  
"Easy buddy, don't throw your tail out of alignment" said Razor. "They know that people trust us, so they're using us to sell their product. I don't like it either, but maybe with Hackle's help we can undercut them."  
"I hope your right" replied T-Bone, firing the afterburners towards Hackle's house by the coast.

---

Across town, a Puma-Dyne van pulled to a halt outside Katzmer's Curios. The driver, wearing a biohazard suit opened the rear door, and stepped back to allow three Kats to clamber out. They all looked superficially fine, but the driver knew different. Ignoring their demands to know what had been done to them, he climbed back into his cab and drove off, leaving them standing in the street...


	17. A Bad Situation

**A Bad Situation**

The Turbokat touched down outside the residence of Professor Hackle, who was already outside waiting for them.  
"Where is the disc?" Hackle asked as they climbed out of the plane.  
"Wha... How did you know about that already?" asked Razor, handing it over.  
"I've been expecting you since I heard about the Pandemic. Xenon would do this himself if he were around, so if you're here, it means he is dead and needs me to finish his work" answered Hackle, walking back inside his house. T-Bone picked up Cody and followed him inside.  
Hackle loaded the disk into a computer, and checked what appeared on the screen. It made little sense to anyone else, but Hackle obviously understood it, as after reading the screen for a few seconds he turned to the others.  
"You Swat Kats must go to Megakat Biochemical and bring as much Katalyst M56 as possible to Xenon's refinery facility. There I can use the equipment to make enough anti-mutagen serum and vaccine to go around" Hackle announced.  
As he did so, Razor noticed an unusual picture on the TV, and turned up the sound.  
"This is Ann Gora, Kats Eye News, reporting live from the new Unity Coach Station. MKC United predicted a big upturn in trade here, but not this" she said.  
The camera panned across to the loading bays. Around each coach was a huge crowd of Kats vying to get on board. Drivers were taking fistfuls of money off people to be let on, and some were already pulling out, their chassis groaning under the huge extra weight they were carrying. The picture cut to an aerial shot, and as the camera followed one coach leave the station, it became clear why everyone wanted out of the city. The coach was having to drive right over a crowd of mutated pandemic victims to get out. Passengers reeled back from the windows as the mutants tried to stop the vehicle, but its size was protection for them.  
"What is going on?" asked T-Bone. "Where did they all come from?"  
"That doesn't matter now." Hackle responded. "We must ensure now that we do this as fast as possible. I will take Cody to the refinery and begin preparations for making the anti-mutagen. You must go and get that Katalyst."  
"But it's not safe, there's a riot out there!" Razor protested, not wanting to let them drive across the city.  
"We'll be safe" said Hackle, opening a door into an adjoining garage. Inside sat what the Swat Kats had come to know as the Metallikat Express. "I designed these, and this one will protect us."  
"Ok professor, we'll meet you there" T-Bone shouted back as he and Razor ran to the jet to take off.  
A few minutes later, Hackle and Cody got into the hovercraft and headed out of the garage towards the refinery. They were in such a hurry, they didn't notice the headlights of another vehicle come on behind as they passed, nor that the vehicle was following them.  
A few hundred yards behind in a Puma-Dyne armoured patrol van a conversation got underway.  
"No, they will not be allowed to undermine our profiteering" said a first voice.  
"Indeed, we shall ensure that they are finished" added a third.  
"Certainly, with the destruction of that living anti-mutagen we shall be rich" concluded, ominously, a third...

---

It was pouring with rain as the Turbokat flew over the city to Megakat Biochemical, but Razor's dimensional radar steered them true.  
"I don't like this buddy, I don't want to leave Cody alone, anyone could overcome Hackle" T-Bone said as they flew past the Megakat Tower.  
"We had to - Hackle will need Cody to make up the vaccine. All we can do is get the Katalyst and get it back to the refinery so he can complete the job" Razor replied.  
"Right" said T-Bone, increasing thrust.  
It wasn't long before the Jet flew over Katalina Street Underground Station and T-Bone put it into hover mode as they flew into the rooftop landing platform on top of the Laboratory.  
The two Swat Kats climbed out and headed down into the darkened building. There appeared to be no-one about, and no guards intercepted them as they made their way deeper into the bowels of the facility.  
"This is creepy Razor" T-Bone said as they pushed through a door into a control room. "Where are all the staff?"  
"Maybe they were on those coaches out of the city - there wasn't much traffic on the roads as we approached, everyone has either got out or barricaded themselves in" he replied.  
"I guess" said T-Bone, still not quite content with his surroundings. He had the feeling he was being watched. He looked back down the corridor they had just left to see if there was anyone there, but he couldn't see anything. The only movement was an automated CCTV camera panning about. At least, he thought it was automated.  
"Get over here, stop messing about" Razor said impatiently. He was busy checking through a stock list on one of the control room computers. The monitor listed hundreds of Katalysts, and it took a few moments for Razor to scroll down to the one they needed. "Here, Katalyst M56. Says it's down in containment, come on" Razor said, leading the way back out of the room. T-Bone followed, but kept throwing looks over his shoulder. He still couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched.  
They walked through a maze of corridors, Razor using his glovatrix map to find the way. They turned a corner to where a door marked 'containment' stood.  
"This is it" Razor said, walking through.  
Inside were hundreds of giant containers, each holding thousands of gallons of different Katalyst. They were hanging from a system of pulleys on the roof, obviously designed to move them around easily. The two Swat Kats walked along an overhead gantry next to them, reading off the numbers of each Katalyst they passed.  
"M53, M54, M55, here we go, M56" Razor said, pointing out the container. "We can use the automatic system to move this up to the roof, then we can carry it under the jet."  
"Yeah, under the jet" T-Bone said distractedly, he definitely felt uneasy about being there.  
Razor manipulated a control panel next to where the Katalyst hung, and directed it on a path up to the roof platform before leading the way back up to the jet.  
"Razor, isn't it odd that _no one_ came in to stop us taking this? It was almost too easy" T-Bone said, and as they walked out onto the platform it became clear that he was all too right.  
"Well, well. So the Swat Kats are just a couple of common thieves after all" Feral said, his gun pointed at them.  
The Turbokat was no longer standing on the platform, instead an Enforcer chopper and several dozen troopers stood there, all pointing their weapons at them.  
"I can't believe you guys would do this, looting, of all things. I'm disappointed, I thought you two were the good guys" Felina said, standing next to her uncle.  
"It's not like that Lieutenant!" T-Bone protested, but she wasn't buying it.  
An Enforcer Sergeant put the two Swat Kats in cuffs, and flanked by a dozen troopers led them out to a waiting prison transport.  
"It's straight to the slammer for you thieves" he told them as he shut them in the prison bus.  
"Great. How are we going to make the vaccine now?" T-Bone said irritably as the vehicle pulled off and headed away from Megakat Biochemical.  
The prison bus drove out of the city through the suburbs towards Megakat Penitentiary. Shackled to the seats of the bus, Razor and T-Bone couldn't move, and whatever plans they may have been brewing were well and truly scuppered.  
As they passed a small farm, the driver looked in his rear-view mirror. Approaching fast from behind was an Enforcer patrol car, flanked by two Puma-Dyne vans. The bus pulled over, and the vehicles came to a halt behind it.  
Three enforcer troopers approached the front door of the bus, which opened with a pneumatic gasp.  
"Change of plan. The Swat Kats were infected with something at the Biochem facility; they need to be taken to Puma-Dyne for decontamination" the lead trooper told the driver, who was experiencing a strong sense of deja-vu.  
His two subordinates boarded the bus, and took the Swat Kats out to the waiting vans.  
"Twice in one bloody week. Typical" muttered the bus driver as he watched the convoy drive off towards Puma-Dyne.  
He put the bus in reverse, and used the driveway of the farm to turn the vehicle around. Misjudging the distance, he backed into the rusting hulk of an abandoned tractor, smashing the tail light. Ignoring it, he put the bus back in gear and headed back to Enforcer Headquarters.


	18. Belated Realisation

**Belated Realisation**

In their Metallikat Express Hackle and Cody were making swift progress through the deserted streets of Megakat City. Neither had noticed the van following them when the hovercraft entered the gates of Xenon's refinery. Cody wiped a tear from his eye when he saw the 'Xenon Petrochemical' logo over the gates. The hovercraft cruised between the old refinery structures to where Xenon had built his main workshop. They pulled to a halt outside and headed into the building, completely unaware of the van that had stopped a short distance away, its headlights darkened. Inside the van, the driver turned around to talk to his passengers.  
"Shall I give the order to fire?" the driver asked.  
"No, we have other plans for the anti-mutagen vessel" said the first passenger.  
"Indeed, we will use this to our advantage" added the second.  
"Certainly, this change in circumstance will work to our benefit" concluded the third.  
"So... What are we here for?" the driver asked.  
"We're here" a fourth passenger said, leaning forward from the darkness in the back of the van "to take out a valuable insurance policy."  
Inside, Hackle had put Cody up on the table Xenon had used and begun to make preparations.  
"What happens now?" Cody asked.  
"Don't worry, nothing bad will happen to you young one" Hackle replied evasively.  
"So _you_ say" said a voice from the door. As the two turned around to face the new arrival who emerged from the darkness wearing a white lab coat.  
"Evening, Hackle" the new arrival said.  
"Dr Argon" Hackle replied stiffly.  
"What's that you're doing there, Hackle?" Argon asked sarcastically. "You wouldn't be trying to use the vessel over there to mass-produce a cheap vaccine to undercut me, would you?"  
"You may have been Xenon's brother, Argon, but you never were anything like him" Hackle said. "He would never have done something so monstrous."  
"You're the reason he's dead!" Cody shouted.  
"Yeah, well, he always was weak. He wanted to help people, but helping people leaves you to die a penniless pauper, as he proved." Argon replied.  
"You will never get away with this, we're going to get the vaccine out there and your plan will be finished!" Cody yelled angrily at Argon.  
"Oh, I'm afraid the Swat Kats won't be saving the day for you, on account of the fact that they've been taken to Puma-Dyne, to join the mutant population of Megakat City." Argon smiled at the kitten.  
It was then that several Kats in biohazard suits entered, each holding a shotgun.  
"Still, at least you'll be back with them soon" Argon added. "Take them away" he said, walking out of the building and leaving the two Kats to be restrained by the Puma-Dyne technicians.

---

The prison bus rolled back through the streets of Megakat City, and headed up the ramp into the Enforcer Headquarters vehicle park. As it pulled up next to the other transport buses, Felina walked past on her way to collect a patrol car. She spotted the shattered tail light, and waited for the driver to come out.  
"How did you do that?" she asked him, pointing at the broken glass. "I'm going to have that taken out of your wages."  
"Come on Lieutenant, it must have been when I turned it around at that farm, I didn't notice it getting damaged, I can't be held responsible if I have to turn around halfway" protested the driver.  
"What? Why did you turn around? You were told to take them to the high-security prison!" Felina asked.  
"Well, they took the prisoners off the bus and loaded them into those Puma-Dyne vans. You should know, they said the Swat Kats had been exposed to something toxic at Megakat Biochemical, so they needed to be taken to Puma-Dyne. Don't they tell you anything?" he replied, sarcastically.  
"Ok, fine, get off then" Felina tersely responded.  
As the driver walked off, Felina's mind whirred. Why hadn't she been told about this? She headed back into the building, and went to have words with her Uncle.  
She met him coming out of his office.  
"Not now Felina, I''m busy, I've got to go and question the Swat Kats" said Feral before Felina could get a word in edgeways. "I want my plane prepped to get me to Megakat Penitentiary on the double!"  
"They're at Puma-Dyne, remember Uncle? Although you didn't see fit to tell me" said Felina.  
"What? Puma-Dyne? Why? What for?" Feral said, turning to Felina.  
"You don't know? The transport bus driver told me that Puma-Dyne pulled him over with their own Enforcer escort and took them off. He said he was told they had been exposed to something at the Biochem plant..." Felina tailed off, allowing the concept to hang in the air.  
"No, they were meant to go to the prison. There was nothing dangerous at Megakat Biochemical; at least, not in the area we captured them. I asked the technician specifically. We gave no order for them to be taken out to Puma-Dyne" the Sergeant, who was standing nearby, told them.  
The two Ferals looked at each other, before running wordlessly up to the roof level and boarding a chopper, heading off to Puma-Dyne.  
"This is Feral. Bring me chopper backup at Puma-Dyne Labs on the double!"


End file.
